Quantum Limit.com

Radio Signals from Saturn

2011-03-24T07:18:00.003-06:00

This is the recording of radio signals from Saturn close to a billion miles from earth. The signals are thought to be generated by high energy winds and other natural atmospheric phenomenon. And yet it is so eerie and realistic sounding that it could also be the soundtrack form a space horror movie! This will DEFINITELY make the hair stand up on the back of your neck!

The Great Adventure of Discovery

2011-02-25T07:00:00.002-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, the Space Shuttle Discovery slipped the surly bonds of earth as I watched from a dock on the Indian River, several miles away. It was a bittersweet moment. I have spent many hours in and around Discovery. I know her every nook and cranny very well, inside and out. I know her smell, her feel. I have sat in her commander’s and pilot’s chairs as well as all the others. I have been inside her payload bay and even stood beneath her three giant engine bells aft. I have looked under her front forward reaction and control rockets hood and peered at the ordered cables behind her electrical panels. I know how she lights up inside in the powered up mode and in the powered down mode. I can still hear her sounds. I consider her a good friend. Yesterday afternoon, my good friend departed on her last great adventure – the very reason for which she was built. But no more.

But, as I have given it much thought, I realized that such thinking is really only wasted sentimentality. Discovery is not a breathing sentient entity – but it is after all just like my boyhood tree house back in Oklahoma – she is the embodiment of an idea fleshed out by the hands of men. My tree house is long gone, but I still hold the secrets we shared together in my heart. I think about it often and what it whispered to me all those years ago. And the idea that framed Discovery’s form is just as wonderful!

Discovery represents... well... discovery! She is designed the from of a notion that mankind has this innate, built in need to discover all that is beyond him. It is a genetic imperative that we seek and explore and discover that which is out of our reach. Historically speaking it drove us out of caves and into straw huts and then into steel skyscrapers and finally into structures orbiting our planet and under the sea. Discovery is an idea that will not end with her mission. Discovery is right now being reborn in the facilities of the League of the New Worlds and her latest incarnation is called the New Worlds Explorer and Leviathan. There are others as well. One is called Spaceship Two and another Dragon.

We are but tiny creatures in the larger scheme of things. But we are tiny creatures with a long reach indeed. I just watched images beamed back from Mars just yesterday, and another set of pictures from Saturn and Titan and a comet. Discovery is about to rack up another 720,000 miles on her odometer during this day alone and before she returns home - 8 million more.

Discovery represents a dream. But more than that, she represents our future – she is the beautiful and powerful embodiment of an idea that has been responsible for humanity’s great journey and will be responsible for all the rest to come. I am so honored to have been a part of her dream of having spent so much time inside her and of having been called to live out yet another taking shape each and every day before my eyes. We may weep and cry over what politicians and lawyers are doing or not doing – but on this very day, my fellow humans are ignoring them and planning and building for yet another day of exploration.

On such a day, it would dishonor Discovery to be sad, when there is so much discovery just ahead.

Dennis Chamberland

The Bright Yellow Asterisk - A Personal Recollection of the Challenger Disaster

2011-01-28T06:43:00.004-07:00

January – 1988. I stood alone 167 feet above the launch pad’s surface. I was staring into the open, small, white room. At the other end was an open doorway and beyond it was the blue expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Between me and that 167 foot drop, the safety team had installed a heavy yellow canvas asterisk – a series of straps arranged in the form of a complicated series of crosses that kept anyone here from falling down to the concrete surface of the pad so far below. I just stood there staring at the open door, the bright ocean beyond and the yellow asterisk barrier that was so symbolic. For the last seven humans that had walked through that open door just one year before had never returned.

As I stared through that door, there were so many memories that flooded back to me. On that morning just a year before, I sat at home with my daughter Katy, watching the Challenger’s fateful final mission unfold on CNN. My daughter was one year and five days old on that unusually bitterly cold morning. I had watched the NASA Astronauts in that same white room where I now stood entering the Challenger spaceship: Commander Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, Pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission specialists Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka and Judith A. Resnik, Payload specialists Gregory B. Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe, who was to have been the first teacher in space and was chosen from more than 11,000 applicants.

I watched as they closed the hatch, as the room was swung away from the ship. I watched the countdown and the liftoff and the whole unthinkable nightmare that ensued. As I held my sleeping daughter tightly in my arms, I saw the ugly cloud engulf the Challenger, the sinuous hydra of the rockets breaking free and snaking around one another in the dark blue sky. And all of that was followed by the sickening telescopic camera playing about the blue sky flecked with white clouds. I cannot forget the cameras following the secret command embedded inside each of our brains searching the distant sky for the sign of the great ship that must somehow come out of those clouds and return safely to base. It was just not possible that they would not return home. It was NASA who built it, NASA who launched it – the very best and the very brightest cadre of men and women on the planet to whom failure was not an option. But then the long lenses on the cameras began to show the ocean surface miles offshore and there the splashes began to hit the frothing water. One after another – huge splashes. It was getting ready to skink in – the unthinkable...

And then the image of Christa McAuliffe’s mother sitting in the bleachers replaced the pictures from the distant ocean impact zone. I will never forget the image of her face. The anguish on her face told the story – the entire story – all of it. What we had all just witnessed together was just not possible. It could not happen. Not here. Not at this place. Not at this time. Not with this special crew. And yet, it did. And as I saw her face and held my own daughter in my arms, I wept deeply and bitterly. I wept for all the trauma of that horrible disaster I had just witnessed live before my eyes. I wept for Christa and her mom, and the rest of crew and all their families. I wept for America and for the dream.

A year later, as I stood there in that white room, I remembered all that and my eyes clouded with tears again. For as I stared at that door at the end of that tiny white room, I knew that this was a sacred place, a hallowed place. And that at the end, the last explorers who crossed that barrier would never come home again.

Today, now a quarter of a century later, nearly 700 men and women have walked across that threshold and stepped out into the black unknown. Ultimately, seven more did not return. That doorway with its yellow asterisk barrier is an image that has been permanently burned in my memory. For that doorway represents everything to me – it is the doorway into human exploration and one does not cross its barrier lightly. Because it does not matter how prepared one is, or how much training one has or how much one trusts the system or how thoroughly one knows and understands the probabilities – there is always the carless moment, or the second of inattention or the sheer blind hand of fate in a complex system supervised by ten thousand eyes. The bright yellow asterisk is the reminder that whomever it is that crosses the threshold and steps into the unknown is an explorer who fully understands that there is always a chance that they will not come home again. Stepping through that doorway is an honor and it is a privilege reserved for only a few but it comes with a heavy price. It always has and it always will. In the end, it is the perfect fool who steps outward who does not understand this price and who is not willing to pay that for which the check could come due at the most unexpected moment.

And so today, I honor my fellow explorers – the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger’s final mission and as well the memory of all those who have not returned from each of their missions. And today I also honor the deepest expectation of them and all the others who have not returned home again. That it is the most important duty of those who have been called to explore, not to shrink back but in fact, as we remember those who have paid the final price for the ultimate human endeavor, to honor them with our redoubled efforts to push ever outward and beyond. We must continue to push ever forward, to step around the bright yellow asterisk into those secret, dark and forbidding places that once conquered will be the cradles homes for the new generation of humans and the launch pad for their generation of dreams and dreamers.

Only Two Men

2010-09-22T10:03:00.001-06:00

12 men have walked on the lunar surface. But only two have descended to the ocean’s deepest point. Shown here are Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard on their January 23, 1960 mission to the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the western Pacific. The temperature outside sat at freezing. The light was lost at around 500 feet, some seven miles above them and the pressure on the capsule in which there were riding was 354 million pounds. They exceeded the capability by more than 12 times the rated max depth of the most advanced 21st century military submarine.

The Unexpected Human Future

2010-09-21T12:59:00.002-06:00

The future of humanity is not what we have come to know with our limited understanding of what we think of as reality. This generation is about to step out permanently into frontiers that were until now the fuzzy domain of science fiction writers and dreamers. But not much longer now and we will burst through barries in quick succession that will define a new reality of human thought, enterprise and human dominion.

ATLANTICA EXPEDITIONS VIDEO PODCAST CATALOGUE

2010-09-20T12:26:00.001-06:00

The Atlantica Expeditions will be producing weekly video Podcasts beginning in late September or early October. The Atlantica Expeditions podcasts can be subscribed to on Youtube or iTunes/Apple Store. All of these will be available as a link from our Atlantica Expeditions website (UnderseaColony.com), Facebook link or on all our Blogs – Discovery Enterprise, QuantumLimit.com or Undersea Colonies. Here is the upcoming Podcast catalogue: Moonpools, Oxygen , CO2, Oxygen and CO2, Transfer Cases, Food and Making Dinner, The Undersea Bathroom, Lights, Power, Excursions, Sleeping, Communications, Communicating In the Water, Undersea Weather, Day and Night, Sleeping Underwater, The Bends, Sharks and Dangerous FIsh, Territorial Fish, A Paperless Society, Resource Recovery, Exercising Undersea, What To Do With The Trash?, Habitat Air Conditioning, The Microscopic World.

Bringing The Pets Along to Live Undersea

2010-09-20T11:33:00.000-06:00

When mankind enters the undersea world to stay permanently, he will not go alone! As a a matter of fact, when the Chamberland family (Dennis and Claudia) go to spend a record 90 days in 2012, we will be bringing along our cat, Snickers, to spend the 90 days with us. And how will we get her down? Well – I am building her very own cat submarine. But – just in case you think that’s quite novel – it is not a first! Check this video out and see not only an underwater cat in SCUBA, but an undersea dog as well!

Counting the Days

2010-09-17T09:09:00.002-06:00

We are counting the days until Claudia and I can move to our new home undersea. I long for the slow dawn that only come with awakening under the surface and the sounds of the life support system always humming in the background.

Raising an Undersea Family

2009-12-08T04:01:00.002-07:00

Shown here is a photo of our son Eric Milton Chamberland literally departing the land to live for a day undersea. It was the day before he became certified as an aquanaut, living for more than 24 hours in a habitat in Aquatica – the great global ocean. Eric, our other children and their parents found out first hand what it was like to live as a family undersea. Although the habitat was not large enough to accommodate us all, while their parents were doing their research in the ocean, the children were still always connected. In some cases by radio and in others by frequent visits to the habitat bringing mom and dad meals, taking away their trash and just visiting.

It was not an uncommon site to see Claudia sitting in the moonpool tutoring a math problem or giving specific homeschooling instructions. On another occasion, one of the children’s SCUBA instructor sat our son Brett down on the front of the habitat and gave him his final underwater exam – just two feet from where we sat in comfort observing him, having a snack and watching the entire event. It may be the first time parents have enjoyed such a close up and comfortable view of their child being certified as an open water diver – while being in the same element with them!

On their frequent visits to the habitat, their mother Claudia would greet the children at the moonpool and then visit with them. At the end of their visit, she invariably would kiss their salty foreheads goodbye and bid them off with an undersea mom’s loving send off: “Exhale, exhale, exhale…” It’s meaning was unique among mothers on earth. Its meaning was, “Do not hold your breath while returning to the surface, it is dangerous.” While other mothers are warning their children to look both ways before crossing the street, our children’s mother invoked a similar warning, but altogether unique to families who live undersea.

Around our habitat lives a rather hostile looking four foot barracuda. While Fred (the name he was given by the local divers) never seemed to threaten or bite anyone, he was still a rather intimidating stray fish with sporting an absolutely evil looking row of razor sharp teeth. On several occasions Fred would orbit around the habitat and curiously peek inside at us. When they children were around, I would warn them by a hand sigh out the window – with the fingers of both hands together mimicking Fred’s teeth. It at least warned them to look out for Fred, although the worst damage he probably would have induced is causing someone to hurt themselves by trying to get out of his way. But hand signals out the windows to the children were essential when the sound of the voice was strictly confined to the walls of the habitat. Of course there were many other hand signals from ‘shark’ to ‘go back to the surface’ to ‘come inside’ to ‘watch your air pressure’ and ‘you’re getting cold – come inside’.

Families living under the sea will soon become a reality again. While our family may have been the first that we are aware of, and only for a painfully short period of time in 1997 and 1998 - others are sure to follow. And of the Atlantica Expeditions gets its way it will be very soon indeed. But this time, the expedition is never scheduled to end and the trips to the surface will be far less than the trips around the magnificent, crystal void of humankind’s new permanent dwelling place: Atlantica.

Diving With Sharks

2009-11-25T04:24:00.002-07:00

When we were in Hawaii recently, a friend shared the details of his relatively recent shark attack. (Please do not reveal his name on replies if you guys know him. He has asked for privacy.) It was totally horrific - he came within inches of death and was hospitalized for over a month. Within an hour of his story we were in the ocean diving with him.

I took my first night dive in the ocean off Honolulu an hour after I saw JAWS for the first time in 1976. I was a younger man then and impulsive and was definitely looking around for the great beasts. But this weekend, diving alongside a man who was seriously attacked, it was a wholly different story. I am not as young as I was and not so much impulsive. The dive in broad daylight was far more intense than the night dive off Waikiki beach. I have been diving in this very spot for hundreds of hours and knew that this was definitely NOT a haven for sharks, but having just heard his story I was definitely looking around.

I know the statistics for shark attacks is lower than being struck by lightning – UNLESS – you live in Florida, that is. And nearly all shark attacks occur in water you can stand up in and most bites are relatively minor leg and ankle bites (ie – surfing injuries). But I also remember the photo that some of my environmental management colleagues took from the air off launch pad 39A. There were countless sharks in the photograph – about one shark every 50 feet or so.

Not all sharks are killers and man-eaters. But all sharks have to eat. They are not known for their intelligence and probably have no idea what a man is, much less swim around and dream up plots against him. But when man encounters shark – it is entirely up to the shark to do whatever he – or they – are going to do.

The shark has very sensitive sensors on its nose. It can detect activity in the water long before it sees its prey and far in advance of the prey seeing the shark. The good news is that sharks apparently do not like the taste of humans. That is why my friend was not killed.

Swimming off the Honolulu Boat Harbor about half a mile out, the shark just ‘tasted’ him and left. In a single instant, the shark clung to his abdomen with its rear teeth. Held him with the back teeth and then took two severing bites with its top teeth in less than half a second. He felt no pain. He thought he had collided with a log. He stood upright in the water and reached his hand out for the ‘log’ and felt the nose of a huge shark. It was at that moment that he saw the ocean around him was ‘purple’. The he felt the huge flap of skin that used to be on his back fold around his arm. The shark turned and left. But he was a half mile out in the ocean bleeding profusely with half his back hanging loose in the water. It was nothing less than a miracle that he survived, and one key part of the miracle is that he apparently didn’t taste very good to the great beast.

As we look forward to longer periods in the water, the site we have selected for the Atlantica I expeditions is also a breeding site for the Bull shark – one of the most aggressive sharks in the world. We will definitely seek more training on diving in those waters from shark experts and diving in and around the habitat will be done with special attention to the activities and behavior characteristics of the rather mean-spirited Bull shark.

Having said all that, we also recognize that our activities are in its waters where it has lived for countless millennia. We are the observers, not the conquerors. We are the scientists there to observe it in its element and we are most definitely not there to remove or injure a single shark. If anything, we wish to study them and count them and understand how the activities of man are encroaching on their habitat. In so doing, we hope to make life easier on them and thereby encourage them to achieve their ultimate balance in the aquatic realm where we have presumed to join them.

PODCAST Tour of the Jules Undersea Habitat

2009-11-25T03:43:00.002-07:00

This is a video PODCAST of the Atlantica Expeditions.

A Tour of the Jules Undersea Habitat.

My Beautiful Machine

2009-11-05T08:01:00.002-07:00

Last evening I stood inside the New Worlds Explorer habitat, leaned up against the walls and considered this beautiful machine. There is much hype floating about these days on what truly constitutes “cutting edge” technology. But as I stood there and looked through her hatch openings and considered where I was standing, I realized that there was truly more here than just materials. The NWE habitat is a fantastic new design – truly the first of its kind. An undersea habitat with a Kevlar shell. It is a living place under the sea that is specifically designed to study and understand very long term – permanent human habitation of the underwater regions of the earth.

That region is no small place either - while we live crowded and struggling on a mere 59 million square miles of dry land, this new territory of certain promise spreads out before our very eyes and unfolds to encompass an astonishing 138 million cubic miles of habitable space! I am speaking of the oceans – whose human population is now and has always been - zero. And that is precisely what my beautiful machine hopes to solve.

I am very much looking forward to discussing all this in the upcoming Motherboard Television documentary on the Atlantica Expeditions and some of the Expedition Leader’s viewpoints. On November 20th – rain or shine – our undersea team will be conducting that interview on the seafloor in Key Largo, Florida, six fathoms down in the Jules Habitat. I am VERY much looking forward to that event! Anytime I can go back and spend any amount of time dry and warm under the sea is awesome. That is, after all, the only place I really consider as ‘home’ to me.

And speaking of ‘rain or shine’ it is interesting how perceptions of even the most basic and simple ideas change when you move into an alien environment. As I so often remind Claudia when walking or running through the rain – “I am an Aquanaut – so how can a little rain make any difference to me?” As a fine example of that thinking, my very good friend Chris Olstad (who holds the record for most logged time living underwater) was chasing his pet Iguana. It leapt out of his grasp and into a canal. Chris just laughed and leapt in after the animal, thinking, “Fine! You’re in my element now!”

If you are interested in all this, please feel free to check out my book UNDERSEA COLONIES at QuantumEditions.com where this and much more is discussed.

DIY submarine success!

2009-09-07T06:03:00.003-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney,

NSW Australia

Last year I wrote about Mr Tao Xiangl, a Chinese farmer/inventor who was building himself a submarine from old oil barrels and other recycled material. To my astonishment the submarine has sailed and the brave submariner has survived the experience. Happy submarining Mr Xiangl !

Rusian leader explores Aquatica

2009-08-01T15:53:00.005-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Seems the Russians take the exploration of Aquatica very seriously. Valdimir Putin himself has just gone down for a visit:

RUSSIAN Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has dived to the bottom of the world's deepest lake aboard a mini-submarine, in a media stunt unusual even by the standards of the Russian hardman. Mr Putin, wearing special thermal blue overalls, was able to examine the unique flora and fauna of Lake Baikal in Siberia during his four-hour journey underwater aboard the Mir-1 submarine. "I've never experienced anything like it in my life," the prime minister, who served eight years as Russian president, told state television aboard the support ship after resurfacing. "It's a special feeling. What I saw impressed me because with my own eyes I could see how Baikal is, in all its grandeur, in all its greatness," he added. The lake's mythological beauty has always held a special place in the heart of Russians and is its fresh waters are home to a variety of endemic species, most notably the Baikal seal.

"The dive is going perfectly, there is a perfect view with the lights," Mr Putin said from the depths of the lake on a crackling radio link-up during the dive. However he expressed some surprise about how murky the water was in the lake, which contains around a fifth of the world's freshwater reserves. "The water, of course, is clean from an ecological point of view but in fact it's a plankton soup, or so I called it," he said. The Mir-1 is the same mini-submarine that in 2008 set a world record for the deepest dive in a lake by diving to 1680 metres (5512 feet). Russian news agencies said Mr Putin had dived to a depth of around 1400 metres (4600 feet) - the deepest point in the lake's southern part - and safely returned to the surface after four hours underwater.

Perhaps he will follow up his dive with an expedition to thye Russian claimed Arctic Ocean parts of Aquatica.

Now We Know - The Final Frontier Begins At 73 Miles

2009-04-10T06:41:00.005-06:00

If one is venturing to the final frontier, it would be nice to know where it actually begins. Space has a definition – it is that point where the earth’s atmosphere officially ends and the vacuum of space officially begins. In aerodynamic terms, it is that point where there is no longer any lift on aerodynamic structures – such as the wings of aircraft.

NASA has a true need to know where this is for the purposes of piloting the Space Shuttle – and their equations define the boundary layer at 62 miles and the shuttle’s performance is plenty good with this definition.

However, scientists at the University of Calgary applied instrumentation to this question by a rocket launch to this boundary, too high for balloons and too low for satellites. The space boundary instrument was carried by the JOULE-II rocket on Jan. 19, 2007. It traveled to an altitude of about 124 miles (200 kilometers) above sea level and collected data for the five minutes it was moving through the "edge of space."

According to this study, the precise boundary of space is exactly 73 miles above the surface of the earth.

This has a fairly important meaning. NASA defines an ‘astronaut’ as anyone traveling to an altitude of more than 50 vertical miles. For the most part nearly all NASA astronauts fly well above that – but there are some interesting exceptions.

For example: The X-Prize was awarded in 2004 to Scaled Composites as the first private flight into space. But, Spaceship One, according to telemetry, never actually made up what the Calgary definition now defines as 73 miles. Spaceship One only made it to 367,422 feet, nearly three and a half miles short of the boundary. They were significantly above the “astronaut’ definition of 50 miles and just above the space shuttle boundary – but just short of the new definition.

And – there are eight X-15 pilots who have earned “Astronaut Wings” who have flown above 50 miles but still short of 73.

It is, of course, so much trivia and much ado about literally nothing – but – in the future when many millions of dollars are on the line – the precise definition and bragging rights will eventually come into play. This scientist and engineer predicts that the boundary between 50 and 73 miles will be a true no-man’s-territory that no one will want to settle who desire to be called a 'real astronaut'. For after all - who will pay all those hundreds of thousands of dollars and still fly just short of the newly defined boundary? After all - the whole private spaceflight venture is all about and only about bragging rights, period.

PS. If I may be allowed an afterthought – Spaceship Two, is currently designed to carry fairly large numbers of people into that no-man’s-boundary with an advertised max altitude of 68 miles – an agonizing five miles short of the newly defined Calgary limit. I strongly suspect there is going to be an inevitable political argument over this finding!

400 Years of the Telescope

2009-04-04T04:34:00.003-06:00

When I was 12, I sold garden seeds from my bicycle door-to-door in a small Oklahoma town. When the task was done, I had earned $18.00. I thereupon took my windfall down to a local store and bought a 3” reflecting telescope. There were many nights that spring and summer that I slept by my telescope on the Oklahoma parries alone with my scope and the brilliant stars, planets and comets. It was a love affair that sparked my interest in all things science and continues to this day.

With that in mind, I have to let you know that the Public Broadcasting System is ready to release a video special that I personally cannot wait to sit down and watch: 400 YEARS OF THE TELESCOPE, a beautiful new film airing on PBS April 10 (local airtimes may be different from market to market so check it out on your local schedule.)

This is the very first PBS documentary to be filmed on 35mm RED technology. Recorded at 4520 X 2540 pixels per frame, the output is RAW format, over five times the resolution of HD! You definitely DO NOT want to miss this! Here is what PBS has to say about the presentation:

This visually stunning 60 minute film takes viewers on a breathtaking journey back to Galileo's momentous discoveries, through the leaps of knowledge since then, and into the future of colossal telescopes both here on earth, and floating in the cosmos. The cinematography is extraordinary, as we travel across five continents and through space to view the world's leading observatories and the majestic visions of space they capture. Leading astrophysicists describe, with warmth and humor, their startling breakthroughs and near failures. With narration by Neil deGrasse Tyson and a musical score by the London Symphony Orchestra, the film makes accessible the exciting future ahead of us.

The show is tied to the International Year of Astronomy 2009, with events worldwide celebrating the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first look at the heavens. The airdate specifically coincides with 100 Hours of Astronomy in early April Astronomy clubs, planetariums and observatories around the world will be hosting star gazing events, with the hope that everyone will take a moment to look up and see what Galileo saw.

Seriously – you just cannot miss this event showing in your living room!

Sylvia Earle: Here's how to protect the blue heart of the planet

2009-03-27T23:55:00.001-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Sylvia Earle is one of the great explorers of our time. Oceanographer, aquanaut, author and lecturer she has been exploring Aquatica for decades. Please watch the video below and hear a remarkable woman tell us why we must protect our oceans:

Greatest Explorations - Sputnik I

2009-03-19T05:38:00.004-06:00

The launch of the satellite Sputnik I by the former USSR on October 4, 1957 represented a monumentally important step for humankind. It was the first robotic representative of mankind to exit the protective blanket of the earth’s atmosphere and enter space. It also represented the capacity of a single nation - the USSR - to gain the “high ground” of orbital space and by its mere presence there, control it. The tiny beeps transmitted by Sputnik I reminded the whole world that the USSR had the power and capacity to orbit directly over their heads safely out or reach of any other military power to stop it. It was, in fact, this very idea that sparked one of the most ambitious periods of human exploration in recorded history in the form of what would become known as the ‘space race’.

Hence, not only did tiny Sputnik I threaten, it simultaneously sparked in the human psyche a primal need to reach out for various reasons. One – to protect national sovereignty. Two – to occupy a new territory before one’s competitors and enemies. And Three – to initiate a season of exploration and discovery that would take humans billions of miles outward into the deeper regions of the solar system.

All of this was initiated by a simple 23 inch sphere armed with a simple one watt transmitter that signaled earth in 0.3 second intervals.

Sputnik I reentered the earth’s atmosphere and burned up on January 4, 1958. But its legacy will live on as one of the most significant of all human exploration activities – the first benchmark in the eventual human settlement of the space frontier.

The New Worlds Explorer Undersea Habitat

2009-03-18T04:23:00.003-06:00

The Atlantica Expeditions has released the latest view of the New World's Explorer Habitat currently in construction in Florida. The model depicts the habitat as it will appear upon launch later this year or early 2010.

The New World's Explorer Undersea Habitat is the first undersea habitat ever constructed from Kevlar. It is also the first habitat ever designed to study various aspects of permanent human occupation of the undersea regions of the world.

The habitat is designed for a prime crew of two or three aquanauts. It is also designed as a modular structure to allow up to four of the NWE type habitats to be connected to a central hub.

Greatest Explorations - Aquatica

2009-03-14T04:19:00.003-06:00

It is a world of perpetual, never ending darkness. Or so it would seem. Beyond 300 feet in depth, the sunlight is shut off and has been since creation. Further, it is cold – most of this dark world hovers around freezing and rarely changes. And as if to ice the cake, the world is one of crushing pressure so that humans in their element are not permitted here at all. It is dark, cold, deep and completely alien. It is called the abyss and it earns its name.

In 1930, no one had ever descended below several hundred feet here, even though the average depth of the world’s oceans is over three miles deep. But William Beebe was a naturalist working for the New York Zoological Society. He enlisted inventor Otis Barton to design what he called a “bathysphere” that would enable two men (Beebe and Barton) to enter inside, be bolted in and lowered to extreme depths.

The bathysphere was a steel cylinder 4.5 feet in diameter and cast from one inch thick steel. On its face was mounted a three inch thick fused quartz window that weighed in at 400 pounds.

On August 15, 1934, Barton and Beebe (age 57) made a world record descent in this ungainly looking contraption to a depth of 3,028 feet off Nonsuch Island in Bermuda. What he saw there was totally unexpected.

Beebe and Barton descended to a place where no human in history had ever seen before. However, it is a place that is not at all odd. It is, in fact, the place that represents the vast majority of planet earth. It was just the first time any human had ever been there, deep in the vast three dimensional void we call Aquatica. Today it is relegated to a curious footnote in human affairs. But it was an event at least as significant as Columbus' footsteps in the new world.

There Beebe and Barton were the first to witness strange creatures with huge gaping mouths and ling fang-like teeth. And nearly all creatures in this abyss came packing their own lights. Here, bioluminsecence of all colors is the rule rather than the exception. “Here there be monsters” was a quote of the ancient mariners writ large over their crude charts. How right they were. And it was William Beebe who first opened that door for all of us to see.

Greatest Explorations - The South Pole

2009-03-10T05:32:00.009-06:00

This series in QuantumLimit.com represents what we believe to be the greatest explorations of the past 100 years. “The greatest” is defined as those which have had and will have the greatest impact on more humans now and in the future. Here is the one we choose to begin with– the first expedition to the South Pole.

The expedition was planned and led by Norwegian Explorer, Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen. Amundsen was in a fierce race to be the first to the pole. Already on the ice covered continent was another team headed for the same destination led by Robert Scott. The Amundsen team arrived at the South Pole on December 14, 1911 during the peak of the southern summer, just 35 days ahead of Scott’s team.

This was a most remarkable exploration in that the teams were pieced together by individual explorers and all the funds were raised by the team leaders themselves. It was a time of individual exploration by men from free cultures who were not limited by anything except their sheer imagination, ambition and a life-or-death courage.

The technology was primitive. They sailed the treacherous, iceberg laden Antarctic seas in wooden sailing ships. The charts of the Antarctic shores were ill defined and there had been many expeditions to these regions that were lost and never heard from again. Some ships were crushed by drifing ice packs driven by uncertian winds and their helpless crews were left stranded on the ice to die. Amundsen and his crew are shown here onboard his ship during the expedition.

When Amundsen’s team departed their ship and headed south across the perpetually ice covered continent, they saw things no man had ever seen before, their feet walking on a massive ice shelf that overlay a continent not just lost but captured by a perpetual ice age that has no end. As their team headed away from their ship, they knew there was no guarantee it would be waiting for them when they returned.

What Amundsen and Scott accomplished was not only significant in laying human hands on a whole new continent and mapping what no other man had ever seen – but it was an historic accomplishment in the entire spectrum of human determination, planning, skill and daring.

Roald Amundsen was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles and was the first to traverse the Northwest Passage. He disappeared on a mission to rescue a fellow explorer in 1928.

The Greatest Explorations of the Past Century

2009-03-09T05:50:00.004-06:00

QuantumLimit.com will present the top exploration initiatives of the past century here over the next few weeks. Following that, the top inventions during the same period will be catalogued.

As we reviewed the selections, we discovered some interesting elements to our list: more than half were human missions and a minority were robotic missions. We defined “greatest explorations” as those which have had and will have the greatest impact on more humans now and in the future. We will present them here in chronological order. The first exploration began in 1911 and the final significant one on our list occurred 1995. As far as a time when these significant events of the past century peaked, the decade of the 1960’s was without any argument, the most significant period of human exploration not just in the past century - but in all of recorded history. Nearly 60 percent of the most momentous activities in exploration occurred during the past 100 years occured in one 10 year period from 1960 to 1969.

Speaking of argument – we understand and appreciate that all of this is very subjective and can be argued one way or another. But we attempted this evaluation in the most fair way possible, representing the full spectrum of all exploration activities.

Tomorrow, we present the first on our list: The momentous 1911 expeditions of Roald Amundsen and the first human team to reach the South pole.

Flying to Aquatica

2009-03-06T14:32:00.003-07:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney NSW

Australia

Heres just the thing to explore Aquatica and visit undersea colonies:

The Deep Flight Super Falcon looks like a fighter jet, with its thin body, two seats, two sets of wings and two tail fins.

"We just had to tear up everything we knew about submersibles and start again on winged subs -- underwater flying machines," Hawkes said. He said Deep Flight submersibles are designed to be more agile than any creature living in the ocean -- with the exception of dolphins. The company says that because of the wings, the Super Falcon can go barrel-rolling with dolphins while traveling at speeds much faster than other private submarines. The craft can stay underwater for up to five hours and travel at speeds up to 6 knots, the company says on its Web site.

Prices start from $350,000 so I better start saving now.

Other Worlds

2009-03-02T05:19:00.004-07:00

This Thursday, just down the road from here a few miles away, the Kepler spacecraft will launch toward orbit on a mission specifically designed to search for Earths in the habitable zone of other stars.

When I was in high school, the science textbook we used said there were nine known planets – period. Since that time, in our own own solar system, we have discovered more than a handful of others, such as the very distant Sedna orbiting more than twice the distance from the sun as Pluto with a single solar year lasting up to 12,000 years and a surface temperature hovering just above absolute zero. There are others.

But as the Kepler spacecraft will look outward to other star systems, it will begin to add to the catalogue of more than 340 extrasolar planets we have also, relatively recently discovered. Here is an example of the catalogue description of the extrasolar planet, Gliese 581C:

Gliese 581 C marked a milestone in the search for worlds beyond our solar system. It is the smallest exoplanet ever detected, and the first to lie within the habitable zone of its parent star, thus raising the possibility that its surface could sustain liquid water, or even life. It is 50 percent bigger and 5 times more massive than Earth.

After a successful Kepler mission, there should be many more such as these added to our catalogue of known planets as the mission is designed ot examine more than 100,000 candidate star systems simultaneously.

Finally – the most remarkable thing about all this is that in today’s classrooms, there is a catalogue of planets much larger than the textbook I used that made relative brief mention of only nine!

The Winds of Destiny

2009-02-20T06:10:00.004-07:00

It has never happened in all of human history before. Not even one time.

But one day soon, a group of pioneers will depart the slivers of land on this ocean planet and venture forth into a completely alien world, with no intention of ever returning to live on land.

In the past, we have gone there for voyages, but our hearts and our homes have always been on the shore – dry and relatively safe. Here, all crowded together on our continents where nearly seven billion people have crowded together, struggling and often fighting one another. But there are a few of us who today look outward on a vast and quite empty domain waiting for us. Here on land is a place where we have had no worry about air to breathe or choking on our own waste gasses. We have ventured to other slivers of land to stay. We have ventured to space, but not yet to stay. When the Atlantica II pioneers depart the pier of a small central Florida community in a few years hence, it will be the very first time in all of history, out of a 100 billion living souls, that any have dared to venture into a completely alien world - to stay.

It will be the cultural equivalent of a new epoch of mankind. From that small pier we as human beings will finally leap out of the cradle of civilization that has held us for more than 5,000 years. There we will find ourselves in a world where we have to master not only our shelter but also our air and wall-to-wall protection from a place outside that is totally alien and hostile to our lives.

I have thought about it hundreds of times. What it will be like to board that boat on that pier, surrounded by a small band of pioneers and point our boat due east. About 15 or so miles from shore, the skipper of that boat will help us to board the Dan Scott Taylor submarine waiting for transport to the Challenger Station – the hub of the fist human city on the ocean floor.

After having thought about it countless times, I can only imagine what it will be like to take in the last breath of fresh sea air, watch the sun climb high in the sky over us, and then bid it all goodbye. Our destiny is not here, but down in this vast frontier below. It will be the cradle of a totally new civilization of men and women and children and families. I have thought about the submarine rolling in the swells over the Community of Atlantica below. I have imagined what it will be like to slide into the submarine and close the heavy hatch after me, spinning its wheel and locking it into place.

It is not really difficult to imagine that, since the submarine is already in our possession and since I have made that trip in and out of her many times. And that is what makes this dream so electrifying. It is not a dream. We are holding and building the hardware. It is a reality that is slowly turning into the wind and about to catch the winds of destiny.

I fully plan to skipper the DST II down to the undersea community and dock her safely. There we will exit to our new human community. And there we intend to grow and prosper, commanding the planets greatest resource treasures – a place mostly unknown and seriously underappreciated today, a three dimensional world of vast importance to tomorrow’s generations. Many of them will be born here – the descendants of a new empire of men and women dedicated to the freedoms of our culture and the stewardship of this brave, new world of which we have only made a casual acquaintance.

This describes the voyages and the enterprise of the Atlantica Expeditions. You can read about it in detail in the book, Undersea Colonies. If you are reading these words, please consider joining us!

Dennis Chamberland

Atlantica Expeditions Leader

Written in the New Worlds Explorer Habitat

February 2009

When The Greatest Invention Of Man Goes South

2009-02-12T09:07:00.008-07:00

When asked which was the greatest invention in all of history - Albert Einstein replied: "Compound Interest". He wasn't exaggerating. But as in all things great - it is also horribly complicated. Just ask Albert.

The economy is far more complex, it turns out, than quantum physics itself and that must have been what The Great One was alluding to. In fact, it is difficult to find ANYONE who admits to understanding it, even though last week, President Obama said, "Nowadays, everyone thinks they're an economist." And that defines the problem. Although everyone tries to represent themselves an expert - in reality, it seems no one really is. The question that was left conspicuously hanging after Obama's complaint is whether he ever found a "real" one. It is like Diogenes casting about the proverbial wilderness in search of one honest man. Our president has yet, it seems, to find one knowledgeable economist, even though one would hope than in the very center of world power, the President could locate at least one or maybe even two after weeks of desperate casting about. It appears he is still at it. So today, when we find the world's economic base is teetering on disaster, it is NOT comforting to find that those in charge don't have much of a clue and can't seem to find anyone who does. Here are two videos that demonstrate that. They are very much worth the less-than-10-minutes it will take to watch.

On the first video features Pennsylvania lawmaker Paul Kanjorski who is the second-ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. He says he was present last September when the United States and the world almost totally melted down. He then goes on to add that nobody really gets it even today, that things are getting worse instead of better and that they are even looking to private citizens for some hints and help! One has to appreciate the transparent candor of Rep. Kanjorski - a truly refreshing approach to the actual truth - whatever that may be.

These are truly some "can't miss" videos on the seemingly altogether vapid science of economics in real world practice. Fasten your seat belts for these.

Google Earth Opens Aquatica!

2009-02-03T12:03:00.002-07:00

Google earth is one of the most remarkable web applications ever. But it has become even more remarkable – if that is even possible! The Google folks have just released Google Earth 5.0 – which includes undersea 3D bathymetry which allows users to submerge beneath the sea and zoom along the ocean floor.

Google earth has already been a fantastic tool to the Atlantica Expeditions. Using Google Earth as our primary desktop exploration tool, we were able to quickly find candidates for the upcoming 90 day undersea mission. But by using the tool; we saved countless hours of frustrating, expensive and time consuming surface mounted searching in boats. By the time we had selected three potential sites from our desktop, it required only three boat trips to directly sound out and verify the final candidate site for the Atlantica I Expeditions! All because of Google Earth!

Today I have already used the tool to begin exploration offshore central Florida and look around the possible Atlantica II sites that we will explore by boat and submarine. Already, after just a single day using Google Earth 5.0, I have generated more information about the potential sites than in many previous months of research. It is truly a remarkable new tool available for free for any desktop environment!

Click here for a review.

Click here to download it on your desktop!

First Kevlar Composite Undersea Habitat

2009-01-20T05:04:00.005-07:00

BGF INDUSTRIES NEWEST CORPORATE SPONSOR

The Atlantica Expeditions is in the process of constructing the first undersea habitat ever constructed from a Kevlar composite structure. The material was selected for several reasons. While Kevlar is five times stronger than steel in most applications, underwater, it is reported to be up to 20 times stronger. In fact, because of this, Kevlar lines are used to suspend undersea listing devices in the deep ocean to detect enemy submarines.

The Expeditions selected Kevlar not only for its exceptional strength, but also for the ability to shape it using various marine epoxies to any form imaginable, making it possible to have aesthetically exciting geometries with unusual strength. We also selected the material because of its ability to withstand point source penetrations, which is actually its most advantageous design characteristic. As most already know, Kevlar is used for protection against knives and even bullets.

The Expeditions received a shipment of Kevlar yesterday from our newest major corporate sponsor, BGF Industries in Atlavista, Virginia.

Why is Kevlar so strong? A single Kevlar polymer chain could have anywhere from five to a million segments bonded together. Each Kevlar segment or monomer is a chemical unit that contains 14 carbon atoms, 2 nitrogen atoms, 2 oxygen atoms and 10 hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen bonds greatly strengthen the polymer chain.

Kevlar is a magnificent material due to the way that it can disperse the energy and force of an object by its chemical composition. As we know from physics, the pressure that an object exerts on another object is equal to the force divided by the area. Kevlar is remarkable at absorbing and displacing the pressure of an object.

Lightweight and flexible, Kevlar has evolved over four decades of innovation to do everything from helping save thousands of lives around the world to helping make safer homes and vehicles to helping land spacecraft on Mars.

We certainly are exciting about welcoming BGF Industries onboard and about constructing the first Kevlar habitat whose design purpose is to test other advanced undersea technologies enabling the first permanent human presence in the oceans.

Link - Oldest and Newest Undersea Habitats

2009-01-19T04:58:00.003-07:00

On Saturday evening an interesting link took place between the oldest and newest undersea habitats. We placed a telephone call from inside the New Worlds Explorer currently in construction in our Cocoa Florida facility, to the Marine Lab Habitat on the seafloor in Key Largo. The Marine Lab has been in service longer than any other undersea habitat – some 24 years in continuous operation.

We connected with the MarineLab Chief Aquanaut – and Atlantica Expeditions Crewmember, Chris Olstad. Chris was still busy working his task as the aquanaut who has logged the most hours undersea as a working aquanaut. There he was, at dusk, operating a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) using a new ‘heads up display’. We discussed his ventures in MarineLab while we also discussed the new habitat the NWE still in its construction phase.

It was a fascinating connection – the oldest and newest underwater facilities already linking up and making plans for the first underwater connection between the two facilities in the hopefully near future.

New Worlds Explorer Habitat In Construction

2008-12-24T03:36:00.004-07:00

Assembly on the manned undersea habitat, the New Worlds Explorer begins today in Florida. The fabrication of the pressure hull plate segments is complete and the assembly of the habitat is commencing. The habitat, shown in a concept drawing above, represents several firsts in the history of manned exploration of the oceans. The habitat is the first to be specifically designed and constructed to answer questions about permanent human occupation of the undersea regions of the world. The habitat is also the first ever to be constructed from Kevlar, a material selected because of its high strength-to-weight ratio - five times stronger than steel on an equal weight basis. The habitat is designed to occupy two to three aquanauts on missions of two to seven days in duration. Crews will investigate science and engineering questions concerning the permanent presence of human colonies in the oceans.

The New Worlds Explorer, designed by Dennis Chamberland, is also designed as a companion habitat and engineering model to the Leviathan Habitat, scheduled for construction soon. Both habitats will be used to support underwater crews on the longest manned underwater mission in history in 2010. The New Worlds Explorer is scheduled for deployment in 2009.

New Aaron Seven Adventure

2008-11-19T05:34:00.002-07:00

Dennis Chamberland has announced the next in the Aaron Seven saga in addition to the release of the new Aaron Seven website.

The new book is titled, "Apocalypse Morning". Here are the details:

When a virus escapes from a military laboratory, there is just no way to stop it from killing every human on the planet. The only escape is to the surface of the moon where a new society will be established to save the human race from certain extinction. But the plans are not complete and Aaron Seven is called upon to develop the most advanced life support system ever conceived after he arrives on the moon. The question is whether the human colony can survive its own plan returning to earth is not possible and the clock ticks down to the inevitable end. Available in mid-2009 in soft cover and eBook. It will also be available from Amazon.com.

Check out the new Aaron Seven website! The new website also includes a FREE short story version titled "Apocalypse Dawn".

New Aaron Seven Adventures by Dennis Chamberland

2008-11-04T11:53:00.008-07:00

I am about to complete Aaron Seven’s latest adventure – ABYSS OF SPACE. It should be available on the Quantum Editions website and other internet book and eBook outlets by January 2009.

"The parallel novel to Abyss of Elysium – Mars Wars. Here Aaron Seven daringly escapes earth with his family and friends. He rides into space through the raging fires of nuclear annihilation onboard an antique missile. And that is just the beginning. Now he has to steal an interplanetary spacecraft from earth orbit and venture a hundred million miles to Mars before his air and water run dry.”

Meanwhile, Aaron Seven is just getting ready for his next adventure, titled NIGHTFALL. Here is the plot that once again combines an Ocean and Space adventure complete with incredible engineering projects:

“The sun was about to fade behind a cloud. But the cloud was hundreds of billions of miles in diameter. It was a remnant of a long forgotten supernova twisted by countless encounters with stars and set adrift in the interstellar void. But when it encountered the solar system, it would block nearly all sunlight from the earth and the ensuing nightfall would endure for centuries. The planet was destined to be plunged into a nearly eternal night. Its oceans would freeze, its atmosphere would condense in a rain of liquid oxygen and nitrogen and flood the world below. No life could possibly exist on her surface and every organism on earth and in the oceans would inevitably die, frozen in the nightfall without end. Everyone was without hope – until Aaron Seven in his extraordinary genius conceived a brilliant idea. His plan could save a remnant of humanity that would carry on the human race – when and if the sunshine ever returned.”

Available from Dennis Chamberland and Quantum Editions in late 2009.

2008-11-01T14:37:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney NSW

Australia

Jacques Piccard one f the 2oth Century's greatest explorers has died at age 86.

SWISS deep sea explorer and inventor Jacques Piccard, who holds the record for travelling to the deepest point underwater, died today at the age of 86. "One of the last great explorers of the 20th century, a true Captain Nemo who went deeper than any other man, Jacques Piccard passed away on Saturday, ... at his home on the edge of his beloved Lake Geneva,'' his son Bertrand said in a statement. Piccard, who was born in Brussels, together with Don Walsh reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, 10,916m below sea level on January 23, 1960 - the farthest point underwater. He also witnessed living organisms at a depth of more than 11,000m below sea level, a discovery that led to a ban in nuclear waste dumping into the ocean. Piccard had also built four mid-depth submarines, including the first tourist submarine that carried passengers deep into Lake Geneva and carried on deep sea exploration up to the age of 82.

Piccard was an aquanaut not just a submariner. In 1969 he and five other explorers spent four weeks undersea in the Ben Franklin (PX-15) . The submersible had no motor and could only drift in the Gulf Stream. The project had the involvement of NASA who used it to study long term close confinement. The history of his family supports those who believe there's an explorer's gene. He father Auguste was an record holding aeronaut who with his twin brother Jean Fleix, was the first person to reach the stratosphere. Jaccques son Bertrand completed the first non stop circumnavigation of the world in a balloon . He is now working on the Solar Impulse project.

The Flag of Aquatica

2008-08-01T04:28:00.002-06:00

Aquatica represents all the undersea and underwater regions of the world, primarily consisting of the single planetary ocean that encircles the globe. This is the flag of that region that will soon be occupied permanently by a human population of Aquaticans.

The blue background represents the three dimensional blue void that will soon be filled with human dwellings, cities and the foundation of a new human empire. The sphere represents the blue ocean planet of the earth of which a vast majority is overlain by Aquatica. The green wave in the center represents the life of the ocean in all of its astonishing complexity and variations – including its human inhabitants. The green wave overlies the globe because knowledge of this living world comprises the most important aspect of why we will move there to stay – to understand, to protect and to recover from centuries of human abuse. As stewards of this - the most vital region of the planet - we come here to make it as pristine, beautiful and robust as it was in the beginning.

Down the Lake

2008-07-25T04:30:00.003-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

The man behind the underwater flag planting exercise Dennis wrote about yesterday was Artur Chilingarov, a Russian politician and explorer. Having claimed the Undersea North Pole he is now exploring another part of Aquatica , the murky depths of the world deepest lake, Lake Baikal:

Russian scientists begin trial exploration of world's deepest lake MOSCOW (AFP) — Russian scientists leading a submarine expedition to probe the world's deepest lake on Thursday carried out test dives ahead of the start of the operation next week, reports said. The trial runs at Lake Baikal lasted two hours with two submarines diving to a depth of around 420 metres (1,386 feet), the Russian media reports quoted the organisers as saying. On Tuesday, the expedition will begin in earnest with the submarines attempting to descend 1,637 metres (5,402 feet) to the bottom of the lake which has a unique ecosystem and has never been explored. The expedition is being organised by Artur Chilingarov, a pro-Kremlin member of parliament and an Arctic explorer who led the team of scientists that planted a flag at the bottom of the North Pole in August last year.....

The Great Aquatican Land Rush

2008-07-24T09:11:00.005-06:00

Nearly a year ago, the Russian Federation planted a flag on the bottom of the Artic sea at the North Pole and claimed the undersea territory as their sovereign soil. Shown above is the submarine planting the flag undersea at the North Pole.

What was at the bottom of the rust-proof titanium stake holding the tiny Russian flag was disputed territory that begs the question, “Whose continental shelf is it?” Is it Russia’s as they claim, or Canadian soil they planted the Russian flag on?

Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay gave his own opinion on the touchy territorial issue:

"This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say, 'We're claiming this territory.'" MacKay continued to say that the Canadian government is "not at all concerned about this mission," and that it was "basically just a show by Russia" with "no threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic."

But Canada is not the only one claiming the undersea property in Aquatica. So is Norway and Denmark – all nations clustered around the Arctic Circle. It would all seem much ado about nothing except for one thing. In an increasingly energy starved world, it is estimated that a quarter of the planet’s remaining undiscovered oil lies under all that old water and ice. One estimate is that some 90 billion barrels of oil lie there. It is no wonder that Aquatican territory has attracted so much attention by the world’s land based nations.

The question is this: now that Aquatica is poised to be claimed and exploited, will there now be any additional attention paid to its severely abused ecology for which there is almost no data? We have abused and dumped in the oceans now for generations and done so willingly blind. Now we are going there to rape her of her resources without even a mention of in situ environmental management.

The LNW Corporation and the Atlantica Expeditions are prepared to step into this void and give our energy hungry species all the answers they need. Without our plan – any plan – the world may get by raping the oceans today – but tomorrow the oceans will respond in kind and no one today even sees it coming. With any luck, they will hear and heed our message before it is forever too late for the ocean species and the humans who depend on them for such inconsequential things as food - and – breathable air.

DIY Subs

2008-07-18T17:24:00.009-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, Australia

Submarines will be needed to explore Aquatica and while the League of New Worlds has a sub others are developing their own vessels. These new boats often show remarkable innovation. In China Mr Tao Xiangli has constructed a submarine from recycled material. I hope its well tested before he takes it down.

Drug smugglers have also taken up DIY sub making, every few months I read of authorities finding some drug lord's cargo submarine. The latest is this report from Mexico. Its sad to note that the only commercial cargo being carried by submarines are illegal drugs.

However here's something better. The Hyper-sub, a cross between a speed boat and submersible. Just the thing to get you to an undersea colony. I want one!

Dangerous Places

2008-06-24T17:12:00.003-06:00

Today we visited Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington DC – within feet of the Pentagon’s continent size parking lots. As I considered who it was I wanted to “visit” at the national cemetery, it became immediately obvious to me that it would be the gravesite of Admiral Richard E. Byrd – the great early 20th century explorer. Upon arrival, I looked Admiral Byrd’s site up on the map and off we went to find the grave plot of one of my childhood heroes.

In the 5th grade, I clearly remember reading the account of Admiral Byrd’s harrowing exploration of Antarctica. He decided for still unclear reasons to man single-handedly an Antarctica weather station some 123 miles from the nearest base – all alone – and totally out of reach of any rescuers that he may have needed for whatever reason. He wrote of this adventure in a book aptly titled, ALONE. It was truly an amazing account for a young boy who would later grow up to be an explorer himself. The primary lesson I gleaned from Admiral Byrd’s account was that true exploration was equivalent to struggle in the field and genuine adventure was invariably linked with its uncertainty. Anything else did not equal true exploration but more of a complicated camp-out pre-ordained by advanced press releases.

And so it was that as I knelt down beside Admiral Byrd’s gravesite that I felt a sense of gratitude that of all the explorers that first seized my attention – it was he and not the 20th and 21st century gentleman adventurers who gauge exploration by probabilities of guaranteed success. Admiral Byrd reminds us all that real explorers engaged in real exploration are more often than not fully engaged by the true danger of the adventure and not the adventure’s payoff in the end. Said Byrd,

“I watched the sky a long time, concluding that such beauty was reserved for distant, dangerous places, and that nature has good reason for exacting her own special sacrifices from those determined to witness them.”

Phoenix finds ice!

2008-06-20T16:21:00.001-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

It has just been confirmed , the Phoenix lander has found water ice on Mars:

June 19, 2008 -- Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it. "It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that." .....

(Click on the original graphic link to see the animated gif)

There could be more to come too. The people at the Xentotech website have come up with the following animated gif from the raw graphics. It looks like wet mud dehydrating to me. We will have to wait and see if NASA confirms any more watery discoveries.

Atlantica Log: June 11, 2008

2008-06-11T18:38:00.007-06:00

The 2010 World Record Mission Already In Motion

The 2010 World Record Mission for longest underwater stay by a team of aquanauts has already begun in the field. Shown here is a photo taken earlier today of Atlantica Mission crewmember Brett English onboard the Kou Walter near Polaris B – the proposed site of the underwater mission.

A three member team went out to investigate several key logistic elements of the mission. Because of the extensive mission requirements that will see three crewmembers stay down for uninterrupted stays of months duration as well as a full time surface crew and a chain of more than 50 different aquanauts visiting the Leviathan and New Worlds Explorer habitats on a daily basis, the logistics chain has to be well planned. We are already setting it up as shown in this photo in a step wise fashion that requires miles of in water support.

The nearest boat ramp to the location is some five miles distant. Over this distance and two staging points separated by more than 13 miles of water, a constant stream of crewmembers, supplies, fuel, food, water and scientific instruments must be safely traversed. This is why the work has already begun, even though the mission start date is still 781 days away!

Brett English is not only an accomplished diver, he is also the artist responsible for the modeling of the habitats New Worlds Explorer and Leviathan. He is a resident of Orlando, Florida and a graduate of Full Sail University.

One Way To Aquatica

2008-06-10T06:34:00.003-06:00

Ralph loaded a great blog here several days ago titled (below) One Way To Mars. It is not just a fascinating concept – it is also a typically human mindset replete with historic precedent.

For instance, as Claudia and I pointed out in our book, The Proxima Manual of Space Exploration over a decade ago, some of the 17th century settlers of the new world of the Americas left not to stay- but to make their fortunes and return to England rich and famous. Reality, however, had another completely different fate in mind:

In 1606, the first ships left England for the new world. They were jammed to overflowing, each individual clinging to a dream, summed up by a few words on a flyer, clutched tightly in expectant fingers. The flyer read (sic):

"Virginia, earth's onely paradise, where nature hath in store Fowle, Venison and Fish, And the fruitful'st Soyle, And without your Toyle, Three harvests more, All greater than your wish..."

They were headed by the hundreds for this paradise they called Virginia and soon, they would number in the thousands. They were lured away from England, each for their own reasons, but all by promises of fame and fortune or simply the opportunity to escape the slums and poverty and to carve out a better life for themselves and their children.

The ocean itself took the first toll. Thirty-nine of the 144 on the first three ships perished on the way over. Seventeen years later, over 14,000 settlers and colonists had made the trip over. All but 1,134 of them had died in the Virginia paradise. They had been ravaged by disease and savage natives, to be sure, but most died because their life support system failed. The little flyers were partly to blame for the mass deaths. The London Company also bore more than a small share of the responsibility. But the life support system held the key to life and death. It failed them for a number of reasons.

The flyer attracted two distinct and polarized classes of England. The first were the "gentlemen adventurers". They made the crossing to paradise to claim their share of gold and fame, along with whatever other miscellaneous success they could drive out of the wilderness. The second class were the indigent - seeking relief from the brutal English caste system or many were prisoners who chose to be shipped away rather than spend their time in the stockade.

When they arrived in the new world, none of them knew how to farm. Such activity was far beneath the dignity of the gentleman and completely beyond the understanding of both. So they died together when the food ran out and the winter set in. The paradise they had so longed for took their lives without the slightest regard for their social standing.

The experience of the early colonists to the new world is playing itself out all over again both in space as well as in the oceans. The 21st century has dawned with more than just the Atlantica Expeditions setting their sights on the new frontiers. And from my personal encounters with them, the boat is again loaded down to over capacity with the enticement of fame, fortune and gentleman adventurer types who wish to go to the frontier, make their fame and fortunes and retire in style back on the land. The exact same is true for many (not all) modern space farers.

However, it is equally true that there are still some of us who wish to cast off the pier and take our one-way trip outward, with no intention of ever returning. That is what is so remarkable about the Atlantica Expeditions. We are permanent settlers willing and ready to risk our fame and fortune on a citizenry of the future, yet unborn.

Are you interested in this idea? Then join us!

One Way to Mars

2008-06-08T02:20:00.001-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney NSW

Australia

A few days ago the Phoenix Mars Lander successfully reached Mars. Its mission will be to search for ice water at the Martian Arctic. Already there are indications that it will be successful. The availability of water on Mars will boost both the search for Martian life and the practicality of human exploration.

A human Mars mission faces enormous challenges such a radiation and the long trip in micro-gravity. We not only have to get the astronauts there but we need to bring them back. But do we really need to bring them back to Earth? Why not send them one way, to stay?

If the end goal is human colonization then sooner or later humans will go to Mars to stay. Thats what colonist do. The question really is are we at the stage yet when permanently homesteading Mars is realistic? The European settlement of Australasia and the Americas was preceded by human explorers. No human has visited Mars but space agencies have been sending robotic pathfinders for decades. Perhaps we can skip the human explorer stage and go straight to colonization.

This is not a new idea, George William Herbert laid out a possible architecture several years ago. The basic requirements are shelter, water, air and food. The colonist can take shelter with them, inflatables can be roomy and comfortable, covered with Martian regolith they would be protected against radiation. Water can be condensed from the atmosphere's moisture or better still extracted from ice or the soil if available. Oxygen can be obtained from the water or atmospheric CO2. Enough dehydrated food for several decades would be sent and it would be supplemented by fruit and vegetables grown in a greenhouse.

Of course volunteers will need to be found for the colony. I'm doubtful many volunteers would be found from the current astronaut corps. Astronauts by definition are travelers not settlers. Maybe soldiers are the right people to go. Sergeant First Class William H. Ruth III from the US 101st Airborne Division thinks so, in fact he and the men from his unit are ready to go. SFC Ruth is a battle harden Afghanistan veteran and writes:

"Here is an ‘out of the box idea’," Ruth writes. "Let the heroes of ‘All’ our countries, for once, risk the ultimate sacrifice for something greater than one man’s idea. Maybe once let these men and woman that rise every morning and say ‘today I will stand for something’ and say ‘evil will not prevail, not on my watch’. For once let them volunteer for us all, you never know, mankind, the human race. It might just catch on if we let it."

Ruth continues, "Will we falter at a hint of death or danger? Or will we do now what so many in ‘ALL’ of the world’s history has done before us. NASA of all thinking societies should understand this. Would there even be an America or NASA if a man named Columbus had not pursued a dangerous and possibly deadly voyage to a new world? He certainly had to consider whether or not he would ever return home to see all those he loved so dearly. But what of those aboard his ships, those that left Spain knowing that they would never return. Those few that willingly risked all for the chance at a new world and a new future, could they have possibly known what effects they would have had on the future due to their sacrifices? Now can we have enough vision to see our destiny, can we, for a moment, see past our petty differences of race and religion to see…peace, prosperity and possibly a new world."

SFC Ruth is a man of courage and vision.

********************************************

All this reminds me of an old story:

NASA wanted to send a professional to Mars but to save money it would be a one person one-way mission.

They first asked an astronomer who said , yes he would go, it would be the fulfillment of his life's work. He would do it for one million dollars which he would give to his family.

A medical doctor was then asked. He said yes, he would go for two million dollars, one million for his family the other million he would donate to medical research.

NASA finally asked a lawyer. He said yes he would go for three million dollars. When asked why he wanted three million he told the NASA official;

“ I'll keep one million dollars, you get a million and with the other million we'll send that stupid astronomer off to Mars”

Atlantica Expedition's New Position Announced

2008-06-05T06:03:00.005-06:00

The Atlantica Expeditions is quite proud to announce the formation of a new Director’s Position – one that was very critically needed. The title of the new Expeditions position is: Director of Entrepreneurial Projects. Filling that position is Bill Kasper of Austin, Texas – quite a remarkable individual. Bill's job is to help develop synergies between the unique scientific opportunities of the Atlantica Expeditions and private enterprise in mutually beneficial entrepreneurial partnerships – and I might add that he already doing an amazing, incredible job!

So instead of telling his story for him, I sallied forth and we sat down across the ethereal virtual table together and held an interview so you could get to know him as I have. Here it is:

Atlantica Expeditions (AE): Bill, can you describe your profession to us in terms that us poor rocket scientists can understand? What is it exactly that you do?

Bill Kasper (BK): I optimize business processes to minimize expense and maximize profit (achieve "zero waste" in the LNW lexicon), evaluate capital activity to identify trends and patterns and develop risk profiles and recommendations for particular investments (particularly in the energy and technology sectors), and define and design software to support those business process enhancements and capital recommendations. It's less boring than it sounds. No, wait. It's exactly as boring as it sounds!

AE: Ok then. Whew! And what would your official title be, given all that?

BK: Technical Architect and Investment Risk Analyst (I occasionally fulfill several other roles such as Project Manager and Business Development Manager as required by circumstances, and depending how impatient I get with the people around me). I'm also a certified technical writer, one-time martial arts instructor, and a world-class sci-fi geek.

AE: Very cool, dude. Together we’ve already explored the core depths of several sci-fi epics but we’ll save our readers that particular agony! But given the certain inherent level of constant solid state insanity associated with the outrageous audacity of creating of humanity’s first undersea empire, as a certified “risk analyst”, what in heaven’s name actually drew you to participate in the expeditions?

BK: I had founded a non-profit corp. called the Alpha Long Range Foundation whose focus was to enhance the human condition at both the individual and species level by encouraging positive human activity and technology and discouraging the negative through financial support of worthwhile activities (micro-loans to stimulate individual capitalism, investment in start-up technology companies, etc.). I had a life-long fascination with colonization of the seas and space, and have always known that mankind's destiny is profitable stewardship of everywhere he can reach. After finding your "Undersea Colonies" through Google, and before getting even 10 pages into it, I joined the LNW. I knew that this was an organization that was already at least 20 years ahead of where I was, with a more precise goal and more momentum than my individual effort. So I have put my own philanthropic endeavors on hold in favor of supporting the lower-risk, higher success probability Atlantica Expeditions. It was a simple case of being lazy, and betting on the obvious winner...

AE: We should also let our fellow crew member know that your commitment is absolute. Even being a non-certified-diver (at this early point), you still filled out the ap and signed up for a position in Atlantica! So here you stand, truly on the verge of settling down to a permanent home in history’s first undersea colony. Any other ideas about that you would like to share with us?

BK: The Atlantica Expeditions represent one of those endeavors which simultaneously seems stupendous in scope and obvious in execution. It elicits my "Wow, that's amazing! You mean we haven't done that yet?" response. With the convergence of many seemingly unrelated factors (sharp increases in the consumer price of energy, food, and commodities, financial and population infrastructural strain across the planet, and technological advancement in materials and techniques), it seems that the time for marine colonization is finally upon us. And when I say "us", I mean Atlantica Expeditions leading the way for the rest of humanity. I have never, ever had any faith in any government organizations to achieve anything (with the possible exceptions of bankruptcy and genocide). The private, individual, commercial conquest of new frontiers always results in increased freedom, wealth, and opportunity, raising the bar for all of humanity. And with the integral philosophical component of "zero waste" and organic sense of care and stewardship of the environment, the Atlantica Expeditions represent the very best combination of human potential: Rational, sustainable, unlimited prosperity proceeding from a culture of cooperative, individual freedom. And we get to participate in this grand step forward for ourselves, our neighbors, our progeny and our planet. What a blessing!

AE: Wow! Where do I sign up for this deal? Bill – I just have to share with everyone that in the past two short weeks you have been a member, you have actually put in at least twice as many hours as I have during the same period. You have put in some long, hard hours, been awake when I’m turning in and awake when I get up answering my emails and text mails instantly. Claudia and I have been at this for many decades now and you are not only amazing but just plain astonishingly encouraging to us. What’s up with all this devotion?

BK: I've been fortunate in coming into the project so late in the game that all the hard work has already been done. You and Claudia and many others have put in countless hours and built upon hundreds of man-years, and I get to join the race 10 yards from the finish line as part of Team Atlantica and get showered with winner's champagne as though I had competing for the whole race. I would say that your gracious professionalism and genuine appreciation when inviting me into a position within the Atlantica Expeditions was an opportunity I would have been foolish to turn down. It is an opportunity to join the most significant human effort currently being undertaken, and I mean that literally, at the point when its success is guaranteed.

I think every crew member and would-be supporter must ask himself the following questions every day: "How can I help, and who can I tell?" If we all ask these questions, and act on the answers that come to us (no matter how seemingly inconsequential or impossibly gigantic in scope they may seem), Atlantica will proceed directly to the colony phase on or even ahead of schedule. We will move mankind from the cradle of the land to the nursery of the seas, and on to the endless frontiers of space one inevitable, personal step at a time. How can any rational human being decline to be part of that?

Space Cook

2008-04-18T17:11:00.004-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Providing adequate life support is one of the big problems of Space exploration. The Space station has the ability to recycle some of its resources such as water but still depends on resupply. That option would be much more difficult for a Mars mission or a Moon base so NASA and other space agencies have been developing Advanced Life Support Systems . Such systems would use biological systems (plants) to provide essential consumables including food.

Now I know astronauts s like growing fruit and vegetables in Space, not only does it provide fresh food but it promotes their psychological wellbeing. However, I'm less certain they would enjoy food preparation. I certainly doubt they would have the time to make a good job of it. Call me a cynic and a sceptic if you like, but I fear after a few weeks of having engineers and pilots cooking they would produce something fit for Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. To prevent such horrors a Mission Nutrition Specialist is required ie: a cook.

Cooks have traditional been an essential members of exploratory expeditions. One of the most famous was Adolf Lindstrom. He was the cook for the great polar explorer Roald Amundsen and went on both the North West Passage and South Pole expeditions. Admundsen regarded Lindstrom as the most important member of his crew. He knew tasty nutritious meals would be essential for the crews morale and good health. The polar explorers hunted their meat and ate it undercooked to prevent scurvy, Lindstrom was a master at cooking undercooked meat.

The European Space Agency has done some research already:

Martian bread and green tomato jam', 'Spirulina gnocchis' and 'Potato and tomato mille-feuilles' are three delicious recipes that two French companies have created for ESA and future space explorers to Mars and other planets.

The challenge for the chefs was to offer astronauts well-flavoured food, made with only a few ingredients that could be grown on Mars. The result was 11 tasty recipes that could be used on future ESA long-duration space missions. ADF – Alain Ducasse Formation and GEM are the two French companies that produced the recipes, and their mutual experience in creating new products and ‘haute cuisine’ have led to excellent results........

"We are aiming initially at producing 40% locally for astronauts' food on future long-duration space missions, for example to Mars," says Christophe Lasseur, ESA's biological life-support coordinator responsible for recycling and production of air, water and food for long-term space missions.

"Why 40%? By growing enough plants to cover around 40% of what we eat, we also get 'for free' the oxygen and water needed to live", explains Lasseur.

The nine basic ingredients that Lasseur plans to grow on other planets are: rice, onions, tomatoes, soya, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, wheat and spirulina – all common ingredients except the last. Spirulina is a blue-green algae, a very rich source of nutrition with lots of protein (65% by weight), calcium, carbohydrates, lipids and various vitamins that cover essential nutritional needs for energy in extreme environments. ........

However in the actual Space environment chefs will need to contend with more then a limited choice of produce. If the habitat operates at lower atmospheric pressure then the boiling point of water is also reduced. Making a hot meal could be difficult. Open flame stoves are out so the microwave will be the main cooker. Microgravity causes its own problems. Astronauts have found they need extra spices to make food tasty and what was delicious on Earth can taste terrible in Space

So although it will be a while yet before Chef Ramsay opens a Lunar City restaurant I think theres a need to get some real chefs up there to do some experimental cooking.

Moon trip for only $10,000 !

2008-03-28T03:23:00.004-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney NSW

Australia

Yes, you can take a journey to the Moon for only $10,000, a real bargain! unfortunately you have to be dead to go.

LOS ANGELES - The moon could become a final resting place for some of mankind thanks to a commercial service that hopes to send human ashes to the lunar surface on robotic landers, the company said on Thursday.
Celestis, Inc., a company that pioneered the sending of cremated remains into suborbital space on rockets, said it would start a service to the surface of the moon that could begin as early as next year.
The cost starts at $10,000 for a small quantity of ashes from one person....

Its a bit hard to enjoy the view if you're dead, I think I'll wait till I can get there alive.

Bean Counters Defeated by the Little Martians

2008-03-26T08:29:00.001-06:00

Yesterday we reported that one of the plucky little NASA Mars Rovers were going to have to be shut down due to budget cuts. Less than a day after that announcement, the Space Agency rescinded the threat and both Spirit and Opportunity are safe again to rove at will! Click here for details!

The Little Martian Robots That Will Not Die

2008-03-25T05:24:00.003-06:00

Four earth years (1,500 days) over their 90 day warranty and still going strong, the Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity have finally met their match. And it isn’t the bone chilling cold of the Martian winters and nights, carbon dioxide frosts forming on their solar panels, angry aliens or even planetary engulfing dust storms. It is something far worse and much more disastrous – the bean counters.

It was just amazing when the rovers surpassed their original design lifetime of 90 days and made it one year, but the glitter wore off for some in the agency when the light bill, mission management and all those salaries and rent had to be paid for year two, three, four and now going on five. All of a sudden the amazingly robust rovers that refuse to die have become a kind of fiscal millstone. Now the word has come down from on high -the budget axe is about to fall. But which of the little robots is it about to fall on? Will it be Spirit or Opportunity? Click here to find out.

A Crude Awakening

2008-03-17T10:57:00.008-06:00

Two days ago I picked up my brand new Toyota Prius. My gas expense was thus instantly cut in half. In fact, after an extensive set of calculations, even though my car payments increased, because of the difference in gas prices, I was making money the moment I drove my new hybrid car off the lot. While I was in the car dealership, they sold three of the hybrid cars while I sat there and they only received a shipment of six of them the day before. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, that is the only good news in this story. In one view, now I am paying out almost exactly what I paid out two years ago for fuel and my car payment is higher. Further, there is a well placed rumor that gasoline will be selling for $5.00 per gallon in the United States by late summer as oil process soar.

There are a lot of ridiculous rumors going around that oil prices are set by money grubbing oil companies. The truth is world oil production has peaked just as geologists said it would decades ago. Further, no new refineries have been built in the United States for decades and our refined energy product production (gasoline and diesel) are linear with a non-linear demand. Therefore we have to import more of these energy products so that today more than 70% is imported from outside the US. Unfortunately, just as oil production peaked, US demand rose but international demand spiked – particularly form China. It is an economic reality that demand determines price and that is why the energy prices are what they are and there is no end in sight. Drawing the equation out to its end-point, energy is the single most pervasive influence in any modern economy. Energy costs are spread out evenly thought the culture. It will soon be reflected in electrical power, food and all other costs.

So what can we do as individuals to simply survive this building crisis? Take a pencil, paper and calculator out and run the numbers on your fuel prices versus what you are driving. You may actually make money like I did by buying a hybrid car. You can install a water heater timer and save up to$20 monthly beginning on day one! You can re-adjust your thermostat. You can take public transportation or car pool. You can shop by internet. You can install solar panels to absorb some of your energy costs. You can install a solar water heater. And this is just the short list.

What do we have to look forward to? An economic and energy crisis is now unfolding. But it is not too late to stay ahead of the curve. Stop and examine your lifestyle, make positive changes and proactively respond and not just react!

Mars Ocean Oddessy: Soanya leaves

2008-02-21T23:11:00.007-07:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney

NSW Australia

As a sufferer from sea sickness myself (I usually stick to shore dives and avoid boats. Theres lots of great shore dive sites around Sydney) I understand how she feels.

Australian Associated Press Story Thursday, 21 February 2008 Seasickness ends marathon ocean voyage February 22, 2008 Nearly a year into a three-year voyage around the globe, seasickness has finally got the better of American sailor Soanya Ahmad. The 25-year-old rookie sailor was being rescued off Perth after becoming too ill to continue her bid to circumnavigate the globe four times without stopping. Ms. Ahmad set off on the 1,000-day voyage with 56-year-old American adventurer Reid Stowe on April 21 last year aboard his 21-metre gaff-rigged schooner, the Anne... Mr. Stowe will now sail on alone "since this is my life at sea". But Ms Ahmad was to leave the boat on Friday, after 306 days at sea, because she has suffered recurrent and debilitating seasickness since entering the stormy Southern Ocean in November. "At times the nausea was enough to lay me flat and incapable of doing anything," she wrote on their website. "While I've adjusted to the environment a little more this past month, I am still prone to feeling horrible on and off. "I feel two more years of this would not be good for me and so I have decided to leave the boat."....

More here.

Gagarin not the first?

2008-01-27T04:46:00.000-07:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

According to the Pravda article below Yuri Gagarin was not the first person in Space just the first to survive.

As 40 years have passed since Gagarin’s flight, new sensational details of this event were disclosed: Gagarin was not the first man to fly to space. Three Soviet pilots died in attempts to conquer space before Gagarin's famous space flight, Mikhail Rudenko, senior engineer-experimenter with Experimental Design Office 456 (located in Khimki, in the Moscow region) said on Thursday. According to Rudenko, spacecraft with pilots Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov at the controls were launched from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome (in the Astrakhan region) in 1957, 1958 and 1959. "All three pilots died during the flights, and their names were never officially published," Rudenko said. He explained that all these pilots took part in so-called sub- orbital flights, i.e., their goal was not to orbit around the earth, which Gagarin later did, but make a parabola-shaped flight. "The cosmonauts were to reach space heights in the highest point of such an orbit and then return to the Earth," Rudenko said. According to his information, Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov were regular test pilots, who had not had any special training, Interfax reports. "Obviously, after such a serious of tragic launches, the project managers decided to cardinally change the program and approach the training of cosmonauts much more seriously in order to create a cosmonaut detachment," Rudenko said.

I'm skeptical, but what do people think?

MESSENGER at Mercury

2008-01-19T01:15:00.000-07:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

While the New Horizons spacecraft is still making its way to the frozen realms of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, NASA's MESSENGER space probe has reached hot Mercury.

The car-sized spacecraft zipped past Mercury in a Monday flyby and is relaying more than 1,200 new images and other data back to eager scientists on Earth.

"Now it's time for the scientific payoff," MESSENGER principal investigator Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington told SPACE.com after the flyby. "It's just a complete mix of results that we're going to get."

In one new image, released today, the planet's stark surface is shown peppered with small craters, each less than a mile (1.6 km) in diameter and carved into an area about 300 miles (482 km) across. MESSENGER used its narrow-angle camera to photograph the scene, which is dominated by a large, double-ringed crater dubbed Vivaldi after the Italian composer. While the crater was last seen by NASA's Mariner 10 probe, MESSENGER's camera observed it with unprecedented detail, researchers said.......

MESSENGER, short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging, trained its seven instruments on Mercury on Monday for the first of three planned flybys to guide itself toward a March 18, 2011, arrival into orbit around the small, rocky planet. The mission is the first to visit Mercury since 1975, when Mariner 10 made its third and final swing past the planet. ......

Being so close the the Sun makes it difficult for Earthbound astronomers to study Mercury. I remember being thought that Mercury had one hemisphere constantly facing the Sun. This was latter discovered to be completely incorrect, Mercury does in fact rotate with a 59 day Sol. Its still a world of mystery its denser then any other planet and there may be ice at the poles. If there is water ice there may be a remote chance of finding some sort of life but I doubt if anyone will ever go sailing with the insect men of Mercury.

Flying Cars

2008-01-08T03:56:00.000-07:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Videophones, holidays in Space and flying cars were all expected treats 20^th Century kids looked forward to when they reached the 21^st Century. Well, its the 21^st Century and although I have a videophone and could go on a space trip if I was really, really rich, theres no flying cars.

Its not from lack of trying, inventors have been developing aerial vehicles for some time. The most famous was Paul Moller. He has been promising Skycars for as long as I can remember but I have yet to see one.

Perhaps the most successful inventor was Moulton Taylor. His Aerocar was a small road car that could be converted into a light plane. He constructed several prototypes and for a while it looked like actually going into production. Sadly it never did.

Flying cars have a great enemy: gravity. If a car breaks down on a road it will still stay there. If a flying car breaks down it may end up on your head. To put it mildly having tens of thousands of flying cars would cause head aches for air traffic controllers.

Not thats going to stop people from trying. The latest flying contraption to hit the news is the European PAL-V. Its a cross between a motorbike and gyro copter. I suppose cattlemen would find it useful during muster.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Record Cave Dive

2007-12-25T02:55:00.000-07:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney NSW

Australia

Due to computer problems I have been off line for over a week, but those problems have been largely solved. In the meantime explorers have been busy. Here's a report of an expedition in Dennis's home state of Florida.

World Record Cave Dive

Photograph courtesy David Rhea

On Dec 15, 2007 divers from the Global Underwater Explorers’ WKPP team completed one of the most celebrated cave dives in the world. Jarrod Jablonski and Casey Mckinlay completed this dive in order to prove the connection between Wakulla Springs and Leon Sinks cave systems. As a result of the connection the twocaves have become one system formally known as the Wakulla- Leon Sinks Cave system. This cave is the longest cave in the United States and the fourth largest cave in the world. In order to prove the connection the divers traveled a distance of nearly seven miles (36,000 feet). The Scuba dive set two world records including the longest cave dive between two entrances and the longest traverse in a deep cave. The dive required the use of Halcyon rebreathers which allowed the divers to spend nearly seven hours at a depth of 300 feet, followed by approximately 15 hours of decompression.
This effort is one aspect of a more elaborate endeavor to map the complex cave systems beneath the land surface of Florida. This multi-decade project is known as the Woodville Karst Plain Project- a project of the non-profit Global Underwater Explorers and involves the efforts of a diverse collection of individuals and organizations including explorers, researchers, regulators and concerned citizens. The group has dedicated many thousands of hours to the exploration and mapping of complex, underwater cave systems and is often called upon to assist government and private organizations to study and conserve this fragile ecosystem.....

Flying Men

2007-12-10T06:11:00.000-07:00

Since the first time man peeked out of his cave and looked up at birds, he has wanted to fly. I realize that I just made all that up, but since all the Neanderthals are dead – no one around can prove me wrong and besides, I heard something like than on Discovery Channel – so it must be true. In any case, even I have dreamed of flying, as soggy as I am most of the time all dressed up as a Aquanaut with generally no where to fly to or from underwater. But right at the dawn of the 21st century – mankind has nearly solved the problem of flying men. I am not making this up….

This is all in the skydiver’s realm right now, but some fantastically talented skydivers have invented a skydiving ensemble called a “wingsuit”, invented in the 1990’s by Patrick de Gayardon. This wingsuit consists of fabric attached between the legs and under the arms so that the skydiver ends up looking a lot like a flying squirrel. It does not defeat gravity, but it enables the body of the skydiver to extend his reach from near vertical fall to a bird-like horizontal fall. Look at his incredible, fantastic, amazing video and watch this amazing individual, Loïc Jean-Albert of France fall down the side of a mountain and even soar over the heads of skiers on the slopes!

At this time in the state of the art, the skydiver jumps out of the aircraft or off the side of a cliff or building (it is called base jumping if not in an aircraft). The wingsuit allows the skydiver to soar horizontally as well as down until he gets close enough to pop his low altitude chute to make a safe landing. The problem is, the wingsuit builds up way too much horizontal speed (about 75 mph with today’s designs) to allow for a safe landing without a chute – at least today.

As show in the photo at the top, the next generation of wingsuits will solve that problem and be able to lose the forward speed (flaps?) and allow the skydiver to land either on his feet or with an attached landing gear frame (as shown) without a parachute! We are just a single generation of improvements away from that, according to Loïc Jean-Albert and that it will take about $2 million in technical studies and trials to finally get there. South African wingsuit maker Maria von Egidy says she already has a design that will allow for a safe landing and is working on it.

And, by the way, if you want to buy one of these for yourself, you can just by clicking here and getting out your credit card. Please wait 4-5 weeks for delivery.

Moonbeams

2007-12-09T03:20:00.000-07:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Heres a use for lunar resources I bet you never thought off. This fellow built a mirror system to collect moonbeams. Apparently a thousand people have gone to the site to bath in moonlight, is supposed to have beneficial health affects. He's accepting $10 donations but I wonder how long it will be before he sets a proper charge. I guess he could hire it to Wiccans for their full moon ceremonies too. I think it would be a good place to party and drink lots of space beer. Now why didn't I think of it?

THREE POINTS, Arizona (Reuters) - Financial advisor Jaron Ness stands in the cool desert air waiting for the clouds to clear and the moon to rise.

As the conditions come into alignment, he steps into the path of a cool blaze of blue-white light bounced off a wall of highly polished parabolic mirrors five storeys high.

"It feels magnetic," he says, turning his hands slowly in the reflected glow of the light from the almost full moon.

The young professional from Colorado is among a growing number of curious people beating a path to this patch of scrub-strewn land out in the Arizona desert to bask in light from the world's first moonbeam collector.

A Tucson-based inventor and businessman Richard Chapin and his wife Monica are behind the giant device, which gathers up and focuses the light of the moon.

The effect of the moon's gravitational pull on the Earth's tides and other natural phenomena has been studied for millennia. Less attention has focused on the sunlight reflected from its surface.

The Chapins built the large, one-of-a-kind contraption that stands in the desert some 15 miles (24 km) west of Tucson, Arizona, in the belief that moonlight might have applications for medicine, industry and agriculture.

"So much work has focused on the sun. We have just forgotten about this great object that has been here for billions of years, has affected us in all forms of our evolution," said Chapin, who paid for the project with his own money....

1000 Days At Sea – The Mars Ocean Odyssey

2007-12-07T03:57:00.000-07:00

DAY 229

Reid Stowe and Sonaya Ahmad continue their record breaking voyage aimed at a 1000 day isolation voyage from the populated world, just like that which will be experienced by a Mars crew later this century. Their hardy schooner Anne (named after Reid’s mother) is just about to cross below Africa beneath the Cape of Good Hope.

They voyage is exciting and can be followed on a day-by-day basis on their website 1000Days.net. The site contains nearly daily updates from Reis and Sonaya as well as photos and their daily log. It even contains a real time satellite uplinked position map.

Here is an email I received from Reid a few days ago:

Dennis - I'm glad you have been following our story. It's been a lot tougher for us than I thought, but all systems are still go. Most of our time is taken up by sailing and repairs, but we would like to develop the space analogous potential. Did you see our list of records we have already broken? None of them are official but we are saying that at 224 days is the longest space analogous experiment to take place on earth. Our skill and stamina is extraordinary… We are giving it our best and hope we can contribute something positive to man's quest to go into space for an extended period of time. We look forward to communicating. Reid

Reid wrote an interesting paragraph on the website I will include here that is an extraordinary thought from a man who has escaped the confines of the land and has dared to explore and literally go where no one ever has before. I believe his musings thus contain some uncommon wisdom from an extraordinary perspective as he reflects on a spindly ivy plant growing in his galley:

“Life itself is so fragile, but when a thing lives it does so with a fierce determination to survive. Ivy is a naturally hardy plant and it will survive however and wherever it can. We wouldn't limit its growth knowing how precious life is out here. We figure the ivy plant knows what's good for its own health and wouldn't grow into a space it couldn't handle. If only humans had the same self-knowledge.”

Comet Holmes

2007-11-21T03:39:00.000-07:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney NSW

Australia

Comet Holmes should be more visible in the Northern Hemisphere, has anyone seen it? Expansive Comet Holmes

Credit & Copyright: Jean-Charles Cuillandre (CFHT), Hawaiian Starlight, CFHT

Picture from the Astronomy Picture of the day website.

Lloyd's next adventure

2007-11-19T03:52:00.000-07:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney NSW

Australia

We extensively covered Australian Lloyd Godson's underwater Biosub expedition. He spent 2 weeks earlier this year in an underwater habitat that used a bio-regenerative life support system. Since then he has been busy preparing his next adventure. From their website:

The Australian marine biologist Lloyd Godson and his Greek partner Carolina Sarasiti, will 'migrate' 500km through the Ionian Sea off the west coast of mainland Greece during September - October 2008. They will do so in two custom-built human powered fish shaped submarines designed by pioneering Greek engineer, Alex Sarasitis. The submarines, 'Ulysses' and 'Penelope', will explore the secrets of the ocean in a unique and unusual way.

The submarines will be using some unique technology:

The scientific and technological part of our mission is true innovation. The submarines will be designed and built by project Engineer Alex Sarasitis and will utilise a hydrofoil tail fin attached to the pilots legs for propulsion. The foil angle will change automatically producing an 'automatic transmission' effect making it the most efficient way of swimming. This new fin technology will be used by Herbert Nitsch, "The Flying Fish", during a Constant Weights World Record attempt in 2008. Alex's designs will be based on the motion and shape of fast swimming fishes such as tuna and mako sharks, giving them the fastest form possible. The “dry” submarines will be built from carbon fibres, giving rise to a new species of fish: the Carbon Fin Tuna. They will be capable of diving to approximately 50m with a clear polycarbonate dome serving as the viewing port. Both submarines will be equipped with video cameras for observation and research, as well as an advanced communication system and sophisticated diving equipment for safety

This is an exciting and worthwhile project and we will provide further reports in the future.

moonrise, moonset

2007-11-17T02:44:00.000-07:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney NSW

Australia

The Japanese Kaguya probe is currently orbiting the Moon and has returned some stunning HD footage:

NASA tests inflatable habitats

2007-11-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

The polar regions are probably the closest environments to Mars we have on Earth. So Antarctica is a good place to test inflatable habitats:

An inflatable habitat designed for explorers on the moon or Mars is headed for an Antarctic test run, NASA said Wednesday.
The habitat – built by ILC Dover and resembling an inflatable backyard bounce for children – will make its South Pole debut early next year. NASA demonstrated the inflatable prototype on Wednesday at ILC Dover's Frederica, Del., facility.

"We deflated [and inflated] it in about ten minutes," said Larry Toups, habitat lead for NASA's Constellation Program Lunar Surface Systems Office, in an interview.

Toups and several other habitat designers from NASA's Johnson Space Center and ILC Dover will attempt to deploy the structure in the Antarctic this coming January. Their goal: to use just four people and deploy everything in four hours. Working in bulky cold weather gear will also make the deployment more analogous to the challenges facing astronauts clad in cumbersome spacesuits on the moon.

The habitat prototype will eventually serve as a multilayered test platform for new technologies such as health monitoring systems, self-healing materials, and protective radiation materials. When not inflated, the habitat can save on space and weight during transportation. It's just one of several models, including another prototype that stands on eight legs and has two pressurized cylinders connected by an airlock door, under scrutiny by NASA engineers.

The Deep We Never Knew

2007-11-15T12:35:00.000-07:00

One of the most influential geniuses of our time, Buckminster Fuller, pointed out that we as humans are crowded on a single continental island in the middle of a vast planetary ocean. While we think we know a lot about our planet, as it turns out, we certainly know far less than what we think. Such gross ignorance about most of our planet is dangerous, at best, and outrageously irresponsible under any circumstances. It means that while we struggle to understand what influence we may be having on the planet, if we don’t even know what lies within three quarters of it, then how can we even assume we can fix the very problems we are creating? Such is the logic of the Atlantica Expeditions that seeks to solve part of that problem. But, see what has just been discovered off Hawaii – a fantastic, never before seen creature being dubbed a “OctoSquid”. This from the Honolulu Star: It's a squid, it's an octopus, it's ... a mystery from the deep.

What appears to be a half-squid, half-octopus specimen found off Keahole Point on the Big Island remains unidentified today and could possibly be a new species, said local biologists.

The specimen was found caught in a filter in one of Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority's deep-sea water pipelines last week. The pipeline, which runs 3,000 feet deep, sucks up cold, deep-sea water for the tenants of the natural energy lab.

"When we first saw it, I was really delighted because it was new and alive," said Jan War, operations manager at NELHA. "I've never seen anything like that."

The natural energy lab is a state agency that operates Hawaii Ocean Science and Technology Park in Kailua-Kona, adjacent to one of the steepest offshore slopes in the Hawaiian Islands.

According to Richard Young, an oceanography professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the specimen tentatively belongs to the genus Mastigoteuthis, but the species is undetermined.

War, who termed the specimen "octosquid" for the way it looked, said it was about a foot long, with white suction cups, eight tentacles and an octopus head with a squidlike mantle.

The octosquid was pulled to the surface, along with three rattail fish and half a dozen satellite jellyfish, and stayed alive for three days. According to War, the lab usually checks its filters once a month, but this time, it put a plankton net in one of the filters and checked it two weeks later.

The pitch-black conditions at 3,000 feet below sea level are unfamiliar to most but riveting to scientists who have had the opportunity to submerge. The sea floor is full of loose sediment, big boulders and rocks, and a lot of mucuslike things floating in the water, which are usually specimens that died at the surface and drifted to the bottom.

"It's quite fascinating," War said. "When you get below 700 feet, it's a totally different world. Lots of fish have heads like a fish and a body like an eel. There are fish floating in a vertical position, with the head up, and don't move unless they're disturbed."

Christopher Kelley, program biologist for the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory, went to the natural energy lab Tuesday to pick up the preserved octosquid, rattail fish and jellyfish, which had been stored in a freezer, and brought them back to UH-Manoa's oceanography department.

"It's a beautiful squid. It's a gorgeous ruby red color," Kelley said. "We really enjoy these little mysteries that come up."

Moon Time

2007-11-03T01:04:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

It looks like I'm not the only person wondering how space colonist will measure their time. LunarClock.org has developed a Moon time system.

The Lunar year consists of twelve days, named after the first men who walked on the Moon. Each day is divided into 30 cycles of time, with each cycle being divided into 24 moon-hours. Each moon-hour then has 60 moon-minutes, which in turn of course are made up of 60 moon-seconds each.

The standard notation is: Year-Day-Cycle ∇ Hour:Minute:Second
40-06-17 ∇ 11:01:05

Lunar Standard Time (LST)

This feels similar to what we have here on Earth, does it not? That is the point. It feels similiar, but there are differences.

Conditions on the Moon are somewhat different compared to the Earth. For one thing, you have about 15 days of continuous daylight (and then 15 days of total darkness). So, a "day" on the Moon, would correspond to about 29.5 Earth-days. About a month. And this is why we have months! You can see it in the sky, once every 29 days or so, you have a full moon, which is "noon" on the center of the disk. This is also called the synodic month.

So, on the Moon, a day, counting from noon to noon, lasts about 29.27 to 29.83 Earth days. It is not a constant. The mean value, roughly 29.530589, is not a constant either! Over time it will be longer. However, this will not be a problem in the near future (your grandchildren might have to add a leap second or two though) .

This means that we will have to fit 30 moon cycles into 29.53 or so Earth days, while keeping the same type of 24 hour clock that we have all come to know and love. The solution is to simply define the moon-second as 29.530589/30, and the rest follows. Go here for Lunar Standard Time definitions.

Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon surface on July 21th 1969 at 02:56:15 UT, and this is the obvious choice for a point in time for the calendar to start. So, this is Year 1, day 1 cycle 1, 00:00:00

Here's the time on the Moon!

&amp;lt;a href="http://lunarclock.org"&amp;gt;Lunar Standard Time - What time is it on the Moon?&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Sea Power

2007-10-26T03:53:00.000-06:00

The Sea as well as Space, has enormous potential to provide civilization with large scale energy, so I'm glad to see that the Australian government is supporting Australian company attempting to commercialize sea power.

The CETO system uses the wave power of the undersea:

Commercial wave-powered water desalination and electricity generation is one step closer to reality, according to Australian developers.

Trials of a technology called CETO have yielded promising results, says Dr Michael Ottaviano of Carnegie Corporation, which is developing the system in the southern hemisphere.

The tests, carried out in Fremantle, Western Australia, verify predictions of how much electricity and water the technology could produce under various wave conditions.

"We've found a perfect correlation between the results our models predicted and what we've actually measured in the ocean, which is a major technical milestone," Dr Ottaviano said.

The CETO technology, first conceived by Perth-based inventor Alan Burns in 1975, consists of submerged buoys connected to seawater pumps fixed to the seabed.

As each buoy moves back and forward with the swell, it generates energy to pump seawater onto land at high enough pressures to drive a reverse osmosis desalination plant as well as hydroelectricity turbines.

The company has just spent two years developing a computer model of the buoy and pump system, which calculates how much power and water it can deliver back on shore according to different wave conditions.

The computational fluid dynamics model uses the same software used to design racing cars and boats for the America's Cup.

"We can also now go to any number of sites, measure the wave conditions there, plug those conditions into our models and then tailor a design of the unit to each specific site that we go to," Dr Ottaviano said.

He says tailoring the units to particular sites would involve changing the buoyancy of the buoy and the design of the pump.....

Pulling the Plug Nearing Release

2007-10-20T03:18:00.001-06:00

With the environment seriously degrading by the minute and oil closing $90 USD a barrel, the alternative energy book PULLING THE PLUG is on schedule for a December release. Here is what the promotional material says:

Pulling the Plug - Real Personal Energy Independence - A Homeowner's can-do guide to unplugging from the grid one step at a time.

"Dennis Chamberland makes it easy for everyone to unplug from the energy grid. Now the average homeowner or renter can unplug from electrical power, gas and heating oil grids permanently – one small step at a time! Well placed rumors have stated that unplugging from the grid is far too expensive for the average family and further, that the equipment expenses are so high they will never be returned in actual savings. Chamberland shorts out those rumors in easy to understand language and by demonstrating that the entire house does not and should not be unplugged all at once. Instead, he offers a revolutionary new method of powering down from the grid and powering back up on your own energy system using the free energy that literally falls and blows about your home each day. Now you can be your own power company and harvest the free energy that is wasted on your own property each and every second. And you can do it one circuit, one simple affordable step at a time!”

The cover price for the book is being hotly debated but it looks like it will be a reasonable $14.95. Following that release, ABYSS OF SPACE will follow shortly – I hope!

Our Robotic Future

2007-10-17T14:07:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

So you think gay marriage is a bit strange:

Sex with robots 'not far away'
HUMANS will be marrying and having sex with robots by 2050, an artificial intelligence researcher has claimed.

Netherlands university student David Levy, who recently completed his PhD on the subject of human-robot relationships, told LiveScience that robots would become so human-like in appearance, function and personality that many people would fall in love with them, have sex with them and even marry them.

"At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, but once you have a story like 'I had sex with a robot and it was great!' appear in a magazine like Cosmo, I'd expect many people to jump on the bandwagon," he said.

In his thesis "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners", Mr Levy argued that psychologists have identified roughly a dozen basic reasons why people fall in love, and almost all of them could apply to human-robot relationships.

"For instance, one thing that prompts people to fall in love are similarities in personality and knowledge, and all of this is programmable," Mr Levy said.

"Another reason people are more likely to fall in love is if they know the other person likes them, and that's programmable too."

Mr Levy said Massachusetts would be the first jurisdiction to legalise human-robot marriage. .....

New type of Space Propulsion

2007-10-10T01:20:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Inventive minds have developed a revolutionary form of Space propulsion:

North West Passage Mystery

2007-10-01T05:44:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Picture BBC news

Is global warming opening the North West Passage? This article seems to indicate it is:.

Warming 'opens Northwest Passage'

The most direct shipping route from Europe to Asia is fully clear of ice for the first time since records began, the European Space Agency (Esa) says.

Historically, the Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans has been ice-bound through the year.

But the agency says ice cover has been steadily shrinking, and this summer's reduction has made the route navigable.

The findings, based on satellite images, raised concerns about the speed of global warming........

Please read the full article. Lets examine the article with our brains turned on. Firstly when did these records actually begin? Well, the article gives a date 1978. Surely you would want a longer baseline to be sure the melting is unusual.

Theres more, readers of this blog would be aware of the Sebastien Roubinet Alaska Greenland Expedition. This was an successful attempt to transverse the North West Passage in one season using a specially designed sail boat that could travel over ice as well as water. The passage usually does clear during August and September but there was no lack of ice this summer:

There were icebergs and lots of thin ice, (2-3 cm) - not enough to sail on; but just enough to slow the speed when pushing the ice sheets. The stays froze, and so did the crew - shivering through their night watches on a deck turning white.

Now, I'm not sure whats going on here, bad journalism, bad science, a bit of both or maybe I'm completely wrong with my analyses. I'm interested in any comments people have. But if this story was really based on an ESA report wheres the critical thinking and investigative reporting Mr BBC reporter?

The New Moon Race

2007-09-15T19:14:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

A new Moon race has began. On September 13 2007 two Americans, Xprize founder Peter H. Diamandis and Google co-founder Sergey Brin, announced The Google Lunar Xprize is a $30 Million prize to send private a rover to the moon. This will be a challenge to teams from around the world. If successful world attention will be focused on the Moon like nothing since Apollo. ( current US plans call for a human return to the Moon after the Xprize completion date). The competition has been designed to inspire current generations:

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that will challenge and inspire engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The X PRIZE Foundation, best known for the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private suborbital spaceflight, is an educational nonprofit prize organization whose goal is to bring about radical breakthroughs to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the world today.

“The Google Lunar X PRIZE calls on entrepreneurs, engineers and visionaries from around the world to return us to the lunar surface and explore this environment for the benefit of all humanity,” said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation. “We are confident that teams from around the world will help develop new robotic and virtual presence technology, which will dramatically reduce the cost of space exploration.”

“Having Google fund the purse and title the competition punctuates our desire for breakthrough approaches and global participation,” continued Diamandis. “By working with the Google team, we look forward to bringing this historic private space race into every home and classroom. We hope to ignite the imagination of children around the world.”

As expected the GoogleLunarXprize has also generated plenty of controversy. Some are dismissing the whole thing as a PR stunt by Google. Others are complaining because their pet projects are not the goal. Lets have a deeper look.

David Nolan at Popular Mechanics gives five reasons why the prize won't be won. Clark Lindsey responds to the criticisms but I like to make a few points. The contest does not require the team to build the rocket, they can hire a commercial vehicle. Back in 1998 a Chinese communication satellite, Asiasat 3 failed to reach a stable orbit, so engineers rescued the craft by sending it on two lunar flybys making it the first commercial spacecraft to reach the Moon. Perhaps a team could send their rover piggyback with a geostationary satellite. Or perhaps they can use the Interplanetary Super Highway as Brian Wang suggests.

The Xprize people know the prize is winnable from previous experience. Remember this is not a new idea.. Lunacorp tried for several years to develop a commercial lunar rover using Russian technology but didn't get anywhere. More relevant was a company called Blastoff!. It was a started by several entrepreneurs in 2000 and managed to raise several million dollars before the dot.com bust killed it. One of those entrepreneurs was Peter Diamandis of Xprize fame. Diamandis explained how the project came about:

It turns out that Bill Gross (and Larry) were both space fans. One day Bill was talking to his son about the space program and decided he wanted to buy him a moon rock... so he naturally looked on eBay to see if one was available for purchase (of course there are no moon rocks in the public sector). This exercise got him thinking about space... after a few other chance meetings, and a reflection on the tremendous success of the July 1997 Mars Pathfinder internet outreach (run by Kirk Goodall), Bill got the idea that he would fund the first private mission to the moon... a robotic mission that would make its money through internet advertising and media rights.... a company he called BlastOff! Bill and Larry viewed Pixar as the model for a company that could create entertainment and garner a multi-billion valuation. Their objective was to only build business models that could reach the billion dollar category... after all they had done it many times already!

Blastoff! eventually folded but they made enough progress for to show the Xprize people a private moon mission is possible.

The New Space critics are completely missing the point. They seem to think that the only worthwhile space research should be about reducing the cost of space access. I may be stating the obvious , but the purpose of a transport system is to transport something. If some team manages to pull this off despite the high cost of transport, fantastic! This will be a world wide event. Millions of people will be following it on the Internet. It will certainly create world wide interest in space exploration something Paul Breed's reusable micro-launcher idea will never do.

Theres already one serious entry I'm sure there will be more. I'm hope some Australian group has a go.

Sailing the North West Passage

2007-09-12T06:35:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

1906 saw the completion of one of the greatest feats of exploration in history, the crossing of the North West Passage by Roald Amundsen. The North West Passage was the great goal of polar exploration and had defeated explorers was centuries. Even the British navy, the most powerful naval force of the era failed. They would get so far, then get stuck in the ice. With luck they got out before their rations expired.

Then the Master Explorer Amundsen came along. He spent time learning how to live of the land from the Eskimos. He knew the water could be shallow so only used a small 47 ton fishing boat. The crew totaled just seven. But he took dogs sleds, and rifles, when they got stuck in the ice they went hunting for caribou. Instead of starving they got fat. Because they had mobility they were able to locate the North magnetic pole. A major scientific achievement of the time. It took them three years but finally they reached the Pacific.

Now Sebastien Roubinet has become the first person sail a boat across the passage in one season:

It took Sebastien Roubinet one year to build Babouche - a 7,5 m ice catamaran designed to sail on water and slide over ice. Sunday, the vessel made Sebastien's dream come true.

The adventurer and his friends connected the Pacific to the Atlantic by the north of Canada; claiming the first Northwest Passage made without engine in one season.

Gamble won!

"Hundred years ago, Amundsen crossed the North-American archipelago from the East to the West and became thus the first person to carry out the passage of this way. Now, Sébastien will try become the first person to carry out this passage only by sail," read the expedition project description.

Sunday - the triumphant dispatch: "GAMBLE WON, CHALLENGE SUCCEDED, DREAM REALIZED... for Babouche, Sebastien, Anne-Lise, Eric and Boris!!!! Babouche reached Greenland!"

Hard wind and sea

The passage took 3 months and 21 days, and spanned 4500 miles. As the ice melts (partially) only two months of the year, August and September, Babouche was in a hurry to get through.

The crew took turns, with Seb and Boris nailing the long, final leg. The team lost the mast at one point, had no heat - and used only sun and wind power for progress.

Soaked and tired, they fought hard conditions during the crossing of the Baffin Sea. North-east winds prevented a direct route to Greenland and leaving Devon Island, the guys battled 20 knot winds and a very hard sea......

Their website is here.

Undersea habitats in the news

2007-09-10T04:05:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

The Toronto Star recently published a very a very good story on current undersea habitat plans. Atlantica Expedition members Dennis Chamberland and Lloyd Godson get a mention.

Photo Tom Wilson

Somewhere . . . beyond the lake

Overseer of undersea hotel in Fiji thinks people might live below Lake Ontario within three decades

September 08, 2007
Stephen Weir Special to the Star

Within three decades the most sought after view in Toronto could be the wreck of the Sligo.

Seen through the pressurized window of an underwater condo, the stark wooden ribs of the 19th-century schooner might be seen reaching up toward the surface of Lake Ontario. To highlight the historic remains, the condo's board could place lights around the bones of the Sligo so residents could watch salmon schooling at night around the underwater landmark off the western waterfront.

The Sligo is one of three visually dramatic wrecks on the bottom of Lake Ontario, close to Toronto's shoreline. Now visited only by scuba divers, breakthroughs in both building and air cleansing technologies mean multiple dwelling habitats – such as submerged condos – could one day be built within sight of the lake-bottom attractions.

Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise called space the final frontier, but that distinction may actually belong to those parts of the planet covered by water.

Michael Schutte, the vice-president of engineering at U.S. Submarines, doesn't believe it will take as long as 30 years before people are living on the bottom of Lake Ontario. The Toronto-born-and-raised mega-yacht designer is now based in Oregon overseeing the construction of an underwater five-star hotel to open on the edge of a coral cliff in the South Pacific by 2009.

Schutte, 45, is overseeing the above-water construction of the Poseidon Undersea Resort , which will be taken to Fiji and placed on the bottom of a deep lagoon. There will be 24 undersea hotel suites and apartments covering 51 square metres, anchored on the ocean floor 12 metres beneath the surface..................

"Why does everyone live on land anyway?" asks Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. "Three-quarters of our planet is water and yet mankind is clustered haphazardly on the land. From space you can easily see where people are congregated. You just look for the 'Big Smear,' the bands of pollution that permanently surround our large cities."

"It is said that if we could handle the density of Manhattan, the whole population of North America could be placed in a state the size of Connecticut," Hadfield tells visitors at the Ontario Science Centre. "On land we have randomly chosen where we live. But in the water, there would have to be more order. Living underwater, like living in space, has some challenges – breathable air, potable water, construction constraints and temperature – but there are advantages, too.

"It would take housing pressures off agricultural land and allow (the city) to access underwater resources for cooling, insulation, electricity and, of course, water."........

"People live under the water today for very short periods of time – usually a week or less, but sometimes for extended periods of up to two to three weeks," says Florida-based author, explorer and former mission commander for seven NASA underwater missions, Dennis Chamberland (see chamberland.org).

"But no one has ever lived undersea permanently – not one person in all of history. My group is planning to establish the first permanent civilian colony off central Florida in 2012 and for the first time, mankind will have a permanent address undersea. So it will happen in the next few years, not 30!"

Chamberland's Atlantica project will be using a donated submarine (originally built to hunt for the Loch Ness monster) to establish three manned undersea habitats over the next five years. If the construction of the underwater station goes as planned, people will begin living on the bottom beginning in 2012, Chamberland says.

"Humankind is attracted to the beautiful and exotic places of our solar system. Just as man will be attracted to one day living on the cliff sides of the Valley of the Mariners on Mars, mankind will be attracted to live in the beauty of the underwater regions of our own planet," he says.

Blame much of the current interest in underwater projects on Lloyd Godson, a young Australian scientist. Earlier this year Godson, with the backing of the Australian Geographic magazine, spent 12 days living in a yellow steel capsule submerged in a flooded gravel pit. He built and sank "the world's first self-sufficient, self-sustaining underwater habitat."......

Using solar power sensors on the surface and riding a stationary bicycle to produce additional electricity to keep his lights and computers working, Godson lived independent of terra firma. The air that he breathed was purified and recycled by algae soaked in his own urine. His algae garden absorbed the carbon dioxide he exhaled, and released oxygen for breathing (he did have to supplement his air supply with air from scuba tanks).

"The demand for information from the media took me by surprise when I was underwater," Godson says. "We were front page from England to Taiwan."

After emerging Godson was besieged with offers from the media to fund and film future extreme adventures. He was in Toronto earlier this summer to shoot a pilot TV show for Canada's Cineflix Productions, which wants to make a 13-part series following Godson's future projects.

"My quarry project was done on a shoestring, but it shows that soon people can live underwater and it can be done cheaply," Godson says.

"My habitat wasn't luxurious and there would have to be a lot of improvements to be usable again. I had a bed, a computer, a phone, email, plants and a fishing rod. I was doing all right, but mate, it was a bit boring.

"There is no noise underwater. If you are a people person, an underwater home is not for you.
Read the complete article here.

Journey to the center of the Earth ... and beyond

2007-09-08T01:56:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Alex Michael Bonnici's recent post on Europa reminded me of the incredible work of explorer-inventor Bill Stone. Stone, one of the leading explorers today, has explored deep underground caves, built autonomous robots that could one day search for life in Europa's oceans and developed his own plan for exploring the moon. I have previously written about his extraordinary achievements. However below is a video of a talk given by the man himself. Very much worth seeing even if you only have dial up like I do.

Italian Undersea Colony Experiment Underway!

2007-09-05T05:46:00.000-06:00

An Italian team has launched a 14 day undersea study “to prove concepts of undersea colonization”. The team is called as it is translated by Google: “Plan Abysses the 2007 house in bottom to the sea 2 Comincia the colonization.”

I sent them an email of congratulations from the Atlantica Expeditions this morning and have suggested a telephone link for a Podcast. Here is the letter sent on behalf of our team:

“From the undersea team of the Atlantica Expeditions, we wish to congratulate your superb underwater expedition! As official Aquaticans, we are with you in spirit and our prayers are with you for a successful venture.”

An English video is found by clicking here.

Rendezvous with Rama

2007-09-01T15:40:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

The film 2001 a Space Odyssey was based on a short story by Arthur C Clarke The Sentinel. He latter converted the movie script into a novel but perhaps his best book was Rendezvous with Rama. Filled with a glorious sense of wonder, Rama tells the story of the arrival in our solar system of a huge alien artifact . Its a 30 mile long O'Neill habitat and we follow a group of astronauts as they try to unravel its mysteries. The novel won both the Nebula and Hugo awards and in my days as a book shop proprietor was a book I could recommend to anyone who wanted a good hard SF space adventure.

Rendezvous with Rama is just waiting to be made into a movie. Morgan Freeman has been working on a film for some time. Latest news is that the project is back on again. However tired of waiting for the Hollywood version, film student Aaron Ross made his own short. Just have a look at the impressive results.

2001: The 2007 Music Video

2007-08-31T08:52:00.001-06:00

I have always been a great 2001 – A Space Odyssey fan. I have always felt it was a work of cinematic and storytelling genius. I particularly loved the imagery sat against the timeless classics, such as the perfectly juxtaposed Thus Spake Zarathustra against the velvet emptiness of space. But hang on, it is decades later and a Youtube video artist may have actually improved on the original. Check this powerful “music video” out for yourself!

Gliding Home at Mach 18

2007-08-23T11:36:00.000-06:00

After the Columbia disaster, no Space Shuttle landing will ever be the same again – not to anyone. When the STS-118 mission was on its way in just two days ago, I sat on one of the many landing consoles to monitor its return. It would land some four miles from where I actually sat and would come in from the east, so that any view of it from this distance would be fleeting and quick. My best view by far was from the console before me and the images beamed back from the landing site itself.

Shuttle landings are every bit as exciting as launches in my opinion. I love the excitement of seeing a 100 ton glider streaking in from space itself and landing at such incredible speeds – yet with such astonishing grace. All of it is, of course, the graceful dance of the endpoint of ten thousand equations per second accomplished both months in advance and in real time, guiding down what still seems like an impossible mission – and all of it accomplished in near silence and all the smooth precision of a beautiful ballet.

The first time I went out for a shuttle landing – I arrived at the SLF (Shuttle Landing Facility) just as the shuttle streaked over Hawaii. Less than half an hour later, it was on the ground, wheels locked! It is difficult to appreciate what is happening in space as that unpowered glider streaks in at Mach 18 with no second chances if something – anything - goes awry. The belly of the ship and her wing edges are being painted by an ionized plasma blowtorch that reverses the energy spent by its rockets on the way to space - only this energy is being spent entirely on her skin! If anything goes wrong in this play of events that are measured in milliseconds, the consequences, as we discovered, are more than awful.

The photo above is presented here to prove that I wake up each morning with something other than seaweed and sharks on my mind!

Space Beer

2007-08-23T06:35:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Graphic Microgravity Enterprises (told you theres' water on Mars!)

For a long time space proponents have talked about space-based products. We were supposed to get pharmaceuticals, advanced alloys and even ball bearings manufactured in the microgravity of space. Well, I haven't seen any space pharmaceuticals but we now have space beveridges including space beer.

The entrepreneurs at Microgravity Enterprises have teamed up with the rocketeers at UP Aerospace to bring the Earth a space-based energy drink, sports water and a beer. UP Aerospace has a sub orbital rocket service that Microgravity Enterprises uses to take some of their ingredients into space. After experiencing several minutes of microgravity the payload is parachuted back to Earth and used in the manufacture of Antimatter Space Energy Drink, Space2O Water and Comet's Tail Amber Ale.

I'm not sure what improvement microgavity has on the drinks but seems to have improved their sales.

New Mexico Business Weekly - August 10, 2007 by Kevin Robinson-Avila NMBW Staff

The world's first space beer made its inaugural flight at Kelly's Brewery in Albuquerque. Microgravity Enterprises Inc., which partnered with Kelly's to make Comet's Tail Amber Ale from yeast that went to space, held a "Launch Fest" on August 4th at the brewery.

In addition to space beer, the company sold Space2O™bottled water and an energy drink called Antimatter, both of which contain ingredients that flew to suborbit on the UP Aerospace rocket that launched from the New Mexico Space Port in April. The water and energy drink have been sold on the Internet since July 4, but the Launch Fest was the first opportunity for customers to sample Microgravity's space beer. The ale proved extremely popular, even at $3.75 a pint. "We went through three kegs in about four hours," said Zach Guilmette, head brewer at Kelly's. "I've never seen a new beer sell so quickly." Most customers said the novelty of drinking space beer was simply irresistible. "It's the curiosity hook," said Joel White, as he downed a pint. "The fact that it went to space sort of guarantees that you have to at least try it."

Some patrons refused to believe the yeast actually went to suborbit. "I just don't believe it," said Steve Atkinson. "It's a hoax. I mean, how did they get yeast into space?" Even so, Atkinson drank the brew. "It's something new, and it's good beer. I'd drink it again," he said.

Microgravity is banking on that "curiosity hook" to sell its products. "We're entering a saturated market where companies with deep pockets dominate," said Darryl Hupfer, executive vice president for sales and marketing. "You have to do something to build a niche and draw attention to your product. We're hoping the novelty of having sent ingredients for the drinks to space will get people to step up and try it."

The company has already received some large orders for Space2O™ and Antimatter. A Kentucky-based liquor chain with six stores in Lexington and Louisville bought a 144-case pallet of Antimatter and two 70-case pallets of Space2O™, Hupfer said. At $36 and $24 a case, respectively, the Kentucky sale brought in $8,544. .....

This gets me thinking.... Perhaps Atlantica Expedition aquanauts might take a home brew kit down with them. Shark Beer, the beer brewed on the bottom of the sea!

Space jump near

2007-08-14T01:11:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Photo Michel Gangne, Agence France-Presse

We have previously reported on Mr Michel Fournier amazing plan to to sky dive from 40km, through that little explored region called Near Space. He failed to raise the necessary funds last year but sometime next month he will have another attempt.

After years of training, millions of pounds of funding and numerous thwarted attempts, the daredevil Frenchman is expected to make the jump over the Saskatchewan plains in Canada next month.

In the process of le Grand Saut or "Super Jump", the 63-year-old hopes to complete a lofty hat-trick - breaking records for the highest ever parachute jump, the longest sky dive, and the highest altitude achieved by a person in a balloon.

Mr Fournier will be dressed in a £35,000 carbon fibre suit designed to protect him from freezing temperatures of -100C, as well as from extremely high temperatures caused by the air resistance created by his high-speed fall.

A re-enforced crash helmet will protect his ears from the thunderous sonic boom he will create as he breaks the sound barrier.

He will also have to spend hours before his leap inhaling pure oxygen to dispel any traces of nitrogen from his blood due to the thinness of the air at 40,000m.

Over the past two decades Mr Fournier has sold antique furniture, a prized gun collection and even his home to press ahead with his dream of completing the record-breaking dive.

He came closest in 2003, when his attempt was thwarted as his balloon burst shortly before lift-off.

"People have said I am too old, but I am very fit and have trained hard," said the veteran of more than 8,500 parachute jumps who has followed a rigorous training regime including running, lifting weights, and yoga.

"I would be lying if I said I wasn't afraid, but I am also very excited. It really is a leap into the unknown."

More here. Good luck Michael!

Another projection of power in Aquatica

2007-08-11T22:12:00.000-06:00

Credit: AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Hot in the wake of the flag planting Russian submarine comes the following response from the USA.

SEATTLE (AP) -- A U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker is headed to the Arctic to map the sea floor off Alaska, as Russia, Denmark and Canada assert their claims in the polar region, which has potential oil and gas reserves.

The lead scientist on the expedition scoffs at the political implications.

"We're basically just doing science,'' said Larry Mayer, director of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire. "There's no flag-dropping on this trip,'' he said in an interview from Durham, N.H.

The Healy left Puget Sound on Monday and should be in Barrow around Aug. 17, said Russ Tippets, a spokesman at the Coast Guard Pacific area office in San Francisco. Mayer will meet the Seattle-based icebreaker Healy at Barrow, Alaska, and head about 500 miles north with a team of about 20 scientists to map an area known as the Chukchi Cap.

Russian media assert that the Healy's mission signals that the United States, along with Canada, is actively joining the competition for resources in the Arctic. Melting ice could open water for drilling or create the long-sought Northwest Passage for shipping. A Russian submarine dropped that nation's flag Aug. 2 on the floor of the Arctic Ocean under the North Pole.

Mayer denied the reports. "We've had this trip planned for months, and it has nothing to do with the Russians planting their flag,'' he said....

Now it may be perfectly true that there is no direct link between this research expedition and the Russian episode but it clearly shows the international interest in this part of Aquatica.

Growing Homes From Seawater

2007-08-09T05:53:00.000-06:00

In the natural world, an astonishing miracle is accomplished all over the world – both on land and in the oceans – when a microscopic organelle – powered by the sun - transforms a gas and a liquid into a solid. The process is, of course, photosynthesis within the chloroplast, converting carbon dioxide gas and water into a solid sugar polymer called cellulose, a chain inverted matrix of the simple sugar of glucose (C6 H12 O6). Nature binds this soluble sugar into an insoluble form, or plants would melt during each rain. Through this process, all wood products are created and from these we build homes, furniture and countless other creations.

There is another, equally astonishing feat that may be accomplished in the oceans by the hand of man using what nature has handily supplied. It is called accretion. This process was discovered by Wolf Hilbertz in the early 80’s. By this process, a current conducting grid (think wire mesh) is lowered into the ocean. A low power, direct current is applied to the grid (it can be the power created by a solar cell) and a fascinating thing begins to happen. Many dissolved solids on the ocean begin to cling to the wire mesh in solid form (called precipitation). But these solids cling to the mesh and one another with the consistency and strength of concrete! Over the course of weeks and months, the solids “grow together” and form a solid sheet of solid material that resembles concrete so much it has been called “Seacrete”.

With just a little imagination, one can see where this process has astonishing potential. For example, of the shape of the mesh was in the shape of a habitation structure, then the structures of an undersea colony can be literally “grown” undersea from dissolved elements in the ocean itself. After all, there are an estimated 200 million tons of dissolved solids in every cubic mile of ocean water – more than enough to build as many structures as one would ever need. The secret is, of course, to harvest enough power and build with the greatest process efficiency.

In the photos above, you can see two views of an accreted material that was created undersea at the Marine Resources Development Foundation at Key Largo, Florida. Note it has an uneven surface and it can be formed around any shape. It can be machined just like concrete.

The Atlantica Undersea Colony Project is already at work finding the answers to all those questions. The topic is also covered in my book, UNDERSEA COLONIES. In the next few months we will be launching a set of investigations determining such things as mesh sizes, densities, power densities, etc to work out the most efficient accretion processes. It is our plan that when Atlantica is stated, on the very first day we will begin “growing” the next generation of habitats from the sea using solar power from the surface.

The "Lost" forest of Africa

2007-08-08T05:14:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Photo Credit Andy Plumptre/Wildlife Conservation Society

My very first Quantum Limits post was on the discovery of the “Lost World”, the unexplored jungle region of Indonesia. As I expected Africa still has regions yet to be explored..

In a once-lost forest in Africa, six animal species new to science have been discovered, members of a two-month expedition now reveal, including a bat, a rodent, two shrews and two frogs.

"If we can find six new species in such a short period, it makes you wonder what else is out there," said Wildlife Conservation Society researcher Andrew Plumptre.

The bat appears to be a kind of horseshoe bat (genus Rhinolophus), known for the large horseshoe-shaped "nose leaves" used for directing their ultrasound.

These new species were discovered in an expedition from January and March 2007 into woods just west of Lake Tanganyika, which have been off limits to scientists for more than 50 years. The area is a remote corner of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been gripped by unrest and war for decades.

Spirits linked with this area include Kabogo, said to occasionally manifest itself as a ghostly boat on Lake Tanganyika at night said to guarantee good fishing if seen, as well as Misotshi, who has taboos against the killing of chimpanzees and the destruction of the forest. For this reason, local chiefs suggested naming the area the Misotshi-Kabogo Forest, the researchers said.

The scientists found that nearly 386 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) of forest, almost the size of all of Hong Kong, remained intact. The woods stretched from the shores of Lake Tanganyika up to elevations of 8,940 feet (2,725 meters) above sea level, or roughly seven times the height of the Empire State Building.

These woods have been isolated from much of the Congo rainforest, the second largest rainforest in the world, for at least 10,000 years, which explains why they held new species, said Wildlife Conservation Society researcher Deo Kujirakwinja. They proved extraordinarily rich, providing a home to chimpanzees, elephants, leopards, monkeys, birds, reptiles, frogs and other amphibians, hogs, jackals, mongooses, porcupines, and antelopes known as bongos....

As the scientist said,”what else is out there?” Perhaps the next time the researchers visit the Congo they can try to find Mokele-mbembe.

Eight million year sleep

2007-08-07T05:18:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Heres another amazing discovery from the frozen frontier. Bacteria still alive after 8 million years!? How do they know it was so long? Also how deep where the bugs buried?

The ancient bacteria were found frozen in the world's oldest known tracts of ice, the debris-covered glaciers of Antarctica.

"We think that they were pretty much locked in a frozen, inanimate state for that period of time," said lead study author Kay Bidle, a marine microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

It's also possible that some of the microbes were capable of maintaining their metabolism within tiny droplets of water suspended in the ice, Bidle said.

Bidle and colleagues retrieved and revived two samples of bacteria from the glacial ice. The first was a hundred thousand years old, and the second was around eight million years old.

The eight-million-year-old bacteria were alive, but barely.

Their genes were severely damaged from long exposure to cosmic radiation, which is higher at Earth's poles.

The radiation bombarded the bacteria's DNA with high-energy particles, which broke apart the DNA's chemical bonds and hacked it into shorter pieces.

This discovery is certainly relevant to Martian exploration although I would think human explorers have a better chance of finding snap frozen bugs than robots like Phoenix.

Under the ice

2007-08-06T04:36:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

The big question I have regarding those Russian flag planters is what did they find under the Arctic ice? Was it only mud or is there something worth seeing? Above is a photograph from the book “Under Antarctic Ice” theres certainly a few interesting sights under Antarctica, although I'll make sure to take a well insulated dry suit when I go there. Below is another photograph and theres more here. Thanks to polar explorer Ben Saun ders for the link.

Watching Phoenix

2007-08-05T04:15:00.000-06:00

As Ralph posted yesterday minutes after the launch, the Mars Phoenix lander departed the earth yesterday on its voyage to land on the Martian north polar regions.

Yesterday morning at launch time on Merritt Island, it was dark and well before sunrise when I left my residence. Stepping outside to drive for a good view of the launch the first thing I noticed was that the mid-summer Florida are was thick humid and uncomfortable even just after 5AM. I walked to my car and drove it away from the trees to a place where I could safely pull over and get a good look at the eastern horizon.

The Phoenix launched right on schedule, as the blackness of the night sky was fully illuminated with a dull orange glow that grew from a small flush to a fully developed sense that a fast artificial sunrise was in progress. But within seconds, the brilliant orange sky was defined by a bright white spot that rose above the tree tops and streaked skyward toward the blackness of the sky, intent on piercing the canopy of stars. The Delta II rocket’s first full minute of life unfolded in perfect silence, the rocket’s light was far faster than its sound.

The flames of the rockets were hard to distinguish against the brilliant, almost blinding light of its tail as it rose and climbed away toward space with a G-loading on the Marsship far greater than any human astronaut could have endured safely. The rocket’s trajectory bent immediately as it sought out its preprogrammed trajectory, threading that invisible needle like corridor that represented its path outward to the Red Planet.

Soon enough, the nine small solid rocket boosters burned out and they were ejected, shedding weight and adding inertial energy to the streaking interplanetary ship. They fell away and down toward the ocean slowly like so many disorganized fireflies sparkling in their tiny tumbling individual dances back to earth.

About this moment, the sound pf the rocket began to roll and rumble. All launches are slightly different when it comes to their sound as it is fully defined by the weather and the way the Florida atmosphere blankets the island. But this launch was not going to disappoint – its roar and rubble was full and intense and literally rattled the world all around me.

As the ship rose higher and higher toward space, the atmosphere’s grip lessened to the point that it could no longer hold the engine’s fire together even in its hypersonic velocity. It caused the plume of the rocket to widen more and more as it rose. For us on the ground, this was a special treat, increasing our now distant view of the ship as it rose, accelerating away from us at more than ten thousand miles per hour.

Then not too long after that, the first stage shut down. For just a fraction of a second, the ships light faded. But then it was followed with a bright plume of fire and then by only a single point of bright, white light. The plumes were gone as the Aerojet rocket engine sprang to life burning propellants that were brilliantly white against the blackness of space, streaking away now like a slow star headed east north east away from me. I watched it until it was no longer visible. Eventually there was no way to tell the Phoenix from the other stars and now all of them were being swallowed up by the barely discernable glow of twilight just beginning to change the eastern horizon.

I sighed with awe and wonder. Here I had again witnessed yet another voyage to Mars, now regularly scheduled every other summer. It still impresses me and I know it always will. Mankind has found his way to another world as much like ours in our solar system as we are ever going to find. Just to watch it and to be there to see the magnificence of mankind’s daring and his dreams is just a wonder.

As I settled back into my car and turned on the light for the drive back, I had to pinch myself again. I had just witnessed another departure for Mars. I pray that I will never, ever get over that awesome wonder as long as I live. It is not just amazing. It is not just a wonder. It is a miracle and I wouldn’t miss for anything.

Phoenix off to Mars

2007-08-04T06:26:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Today at 5.36am Florida time, a Delta II rocket blasted off carrying NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander spacecraft on its 9 month mission to Mars. The Phoenix robot will land in the Martian Arctic and analyse soil and ice samples. Its instruments won't be able to detect life but will provide information on Mars biological potential.

From the press reports.

We have worked for four years to get to this point, so we are all very excited,'' said Phoenix project manager Barry Goldstein at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

NASA hopes to land the probe on flat ground with few or no rocks at a Martian latitude equivalent to northern Alaska on Earth.

Phoenix is likely to face Martian temperatures that range from minus 73 degrees Celsius to minus 33 C.

Once it lands safely on the Martian surface, the probe will deploy a set of research tools never before used on the planet.

The solar-powered craft is equipped with a 2.35 metre robotic arm that will enter vertically into the soil, aiming to strike the icy crust that is believed to lie within a few inches of the surface.

The Phoenix's robotic arm will lift soil samples to two instruments on its deck.

One instrument will check for water and carbon-based chemicals, considered essential building blocks for life, while the other will analyze the soil chemistry.

Many scientists see signs of ancient rivers and oceans on the arid and sterile surface of Mars, and believe the planet may once have harbored some forms of life.

In 2002, the NASA probe Mars Odyssey detected huge quantities of hydrogen on the Martian surface, a likely sign there could be ice at a depth of less than one metre.

"Phoenix investigates the recent Odyssey discovery of near-surface ice in the northern plains on Mars,'' said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

"Our instruments are specially designed to find evidence for periodic melting of the ice and to assess whether this large region represents a habitable environment for Martian microbes.''

I will be following this mission with considerable interest. How much water will they find? Could they possibly find hard proof of Martian life? Lets wait and see. More here.

FIRST PROJECTION OF 21st CENTURY POWER IN AQUATICA

2007-08-02T10:37:00.000-06:00

In my book UNDERSEA COLONIES I make the claim that the undersea dominion of the earth is not only vast but it is far richer in resources than the continents. I develop that idea into the fact that these undersea regions will have not only strategic importance but that they will be the next great empire on earth because of their richness and hence their ultimate strategic power.

Now, not even a month after the book’s release, reality appears on Aquatica’s sonar, as this news article supports:

“A mechanical arm dropped a specially made rust-proof titanium flag onto the Arctic seabed at a depth of 4,261 meters (13,980 ft), Itar-Tass news agency quoted expedition officials as saying.

Russia wants to extend right up to the North Pole the territory it controls in the Arctic, believed to hold vast reserves of untapped oil and natural gas.

But Canada mocked Russia's ambitions and said the expedition was nothing more than a show.

"This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory'," Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay told CTV television.

Under international law, the five states with territory inside the Arctic Circle -- Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark via its control of Greenland -- have a 320 km (200 mile) economic zone around the north of their coastline.

Russia is claiming a larger slice extending as far as the pole because, Moscow says, the Arctic seabed and Siberia are linked by one continental shelf.

"Then Russia can give foundation to its claim to more than a million square kilometers of the oceanic shelf," said a newsreader for Russia's state news channel Vesti-24, which made the expedition their top news story.

"It was a soft landing," Tass quoted expedition leader Artur Chilingarov as saying from on board one of the submersibles.

The rest of the expedition team, floating on a support vessel between the giant ice sheets of the Arctic, broke into applause when news came through the mission had been completed.

"There is yellowish gravel down here. No creatures of the deep are visible," said Chilingarov, 67, a veteran Arctic explorer and parliament deputy for the pro-Kremlin party.

Expedition leaders have said their main worry is to resurface at the ice hole where they dived as the mini-submersibles are not strong enough to break through the North Pole's deep ice cap.

One of the aims of the expedition is to allow oceanographers to study the seabed and establish that Russia and the North Pole are part of the same shelf.

"The aim of this expedition is not to stake Russia's claim but to show that our shelf reaches to the North Pole," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Manila, where he is attending a regional security conference.

(Editor’s note – legally there is no difference in the two claims.)

The Mir-1 submersible reached the seabed at 1208 Moscow time (4:08 a.m. EDT). A second Russian submersible, manned by Swedish businessman Frederik Paulsen and Australian adventurer Mike McDowell, reached the seabed 27 minutes later. It reached a depth of 4,302 meters.

Soviet and U.S. nuclear submarines have often traveled under the polar icecap, but no one had reached the seabed under the Pole, where depths exceed 4,000 meters (13,100 feet).

You may check out the book by clicking here.

Undersea Colonies Review

2007-08-01T10:11:00.000-06:00

A book review by Alex Michael Bonnici “...breathtaking and awesome... a new renaissance of wonder and exploration.” Alex Michael Bonnici - European Union Liaison – Atlantica Expeditions

The sea and oceans of our planet have since time immemorial been a familiar but mysterious and alien territory for much of human history. This is about to change.

Dennis Chamberland’s book “Undersea Colonies” will do for undersea settlement what Gerard K. O’Neill’s “The High Frontier” did for space colonization. This book will prove to be one of the most important works of the new millennium. It is a book of truly breathtaking and awesome scope and will go very far in preparing the human consciousness for the eventual permanent settlement and colonization of the undersea realm and in creating a new race of humans that can truly call themselves Aquaticans - the permanent dwellers of the new undersea continent of Aquatica. This book will make Aquaticans of us all.

Mr. Chamberland is a space systems engineer who has designed life support systems for space stations and undersea habitats. In his capable hands his wide ranging vision will become a reality.

After a hiatus of nearly forty years we can start talking seriously about undersea settlements again. In the words of E. Merrill Root "We need a renaissance of wonder. We need to renew, in our hearts and in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that life is miracle and magic". Undersea Colonies is a book that will prove to be on the vanguard of that new renaissance of wonder and exploration. It shows us that despite a misguided false start that the dream of colonizing the undersea world is still alive and well in the very capable hands of Dennis Chamberland.

New Exploration Site

2007-07-30T10:39:00.000-06:00

Today the population of the most expansive region of the earth is zero – and it has always been. But - there is a group of engineers, scientists and explorers who are seriously intent on changing that status-quo by establishing the first permanent human colony in the ocean. Their website, the ATLANTICA EXPEDITIONS is now open.

The group (of which I have an intimate familiarity) has already begun the process which culminates in the first ever undersea colony off the central Florida coast in 2012. Until then the Atlantica Expeditions are planning two experimental undersea stations, the New Worlds Explorer and the Leviathan – scheduled for launching in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

The relatively huge site features several videos and other awesome graphics as well as many pages. It is definitely worth a test drive of the site!

CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT.

Prehistoric Exploration

2007-07-24T05:55:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

One of the great explorers of the 20^th Century was the Norwegian ethnologist Thor Heyerdahl. He believed that prehistoric societies were capable of trans oceanic travel and trade. He would point to similarities in language and artifacts on different continents as well as legends of great sea voyages as evidence. In 1947 Thor and a small crew set sail across the Pacific on a balsa wood raft to show that Polynesians may have originated from South America. In latter years he sailed an Egyptian type reed boat, the Ra, across the Atlantic to South America.

His book “Kon-Tiki” is a true exploration classic, still in print its one of the touch stones of my generation. Get a group of people of a certain age together and you can bet a large percentage would have read it. I think it must have been in every school library in Australia.

Of course none of these expeditions prove prehistoric societies actually had intercontinental trade. Although the discovery of traces of nicotine and cocaine in the mummy of Ramses II and tobacco beetles in Egyptian graves sure appear convincing to a layman like me. However, the Kon-Tiki and Ra expeditions traveled with the prevailing currents and winds, they were one way journeys, If transoceanic trade was possible then the vessels had to get back.

Now another group of explorers are trying to show two way trade was possible. The Abora III expedition is trying to sail a reed boat from North America to Spain.

From explorersweb:

Now a ten-person crew including Tormod and led by Dominique Gorlitz is out to prove that others may have taken that historic intercontinental voyage far before Columbus — up to 14,000 years ago — by crossing the North Atlantic in a prehistoric-style boat made of reeds.

Gorlitz and his crew left port in New York City bound for Spain in the ABORA III, a boat made from reeds harvested at Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. Since its July 11 departure, the boat has traveled 188 miles into the Atlantic.

“The prevailing opinion is that the North Atlantic passage was not possible 14,000 years ago,” Gorlitz says. “And if the return journey from the Americas into the Old World was impossible, so too was regular commerce between the two continents. But every assumption is valid only when the opposite is proven to be untrue.”...

Aside from the heady implications the completion of their voyage could entail, first the crew needs to deal with the crossing itself.

“Waves have been reaching 10 feet and winds have been blowing up to 17 knots per hour,” the crew reported this week. “Handling the fragile boat demands conservative judgment. Last night, Görlitz had no choice but to partly lower the sail in order to temporarily reduce the speed of the ABORA III. The boat performed well in the challenging conditions, but left many a crewmember sleepless as ABORA III rolled heavily in the waves.”

Certainly a successful voyage would show that primitive boats were capable o the trips but of course , not prove it was actually done. To my mind there remains one big question, how did they navigate? Could ancient sailors successfully navigate the Atlantic to allow trade? I realize the Polynesians could sail the Pacific without instruments but the Atlantic is a rough ocean I'm not sure their methods would be suitable.

Maybe they did have instruments after all. Crichton Miller makes the case that the ancient Celtic Cross was a navigation tool. Perhaps it was, or perhaps Mr Miller is being too imaginative. I not qualified to have a proper opinion but as recent discoveries show the ancient world can surprise us .

Mystery Space Ship

2007-07-21T16:15:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney NSW

Australia

I enjoy reading retro Space Fiction, science fiction stories written years ago about a future that never was. One of my recent reads was “Edison's Conquest of Mars” by Garrett P. Serviss. The story was published in 1898 and features the first fictional appearance of space suits, asteroid mining, scientists-astronauts and manned maneuvering EVA guns. It inspired a young Robert Goddard who would regularly re-read the novel during his life.

Properly the author who inspired the early rocketeers the most would have been Jules Verne. His book From The Earth To The Moon is the great science fiction classic, but its more, its the first book on astronautics. Verne describes in detail how a Moon expedition could be accomplished using the known science of the day.

It seems Verne is still influencing the current generation of space pioneers. Above is a photograph of a full scale model of the Jules Verne moon ship (more here). It appears to be in some office lobby and may belong to Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos. Can anyone please confirm this?

The Discovery Enterprise

2007-07-21T05:50:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Theres a new blog on the Internet. The Discovery Enterprise is a group blog with contributors from three continents: Dennis Chamberland, Florida USA, Ralph Buttigieg, Sydney Australia and Alex Michael Bonnici, Malta Europe. Our themes are exploration, science and science fiction. Come on over and have a look, Alex has posted a wonderful article in commemoration of the Apollo 11 anniversary.

Space Suits II

2007-07-18T05:07:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Recent discussions regarding the old Major Matt Mason play dolls brought up memories of his Moon suit. The suit was not some designers fantasy but was based on work NASA was doing at the time. The Encyclopedia Astronautica describes it as:

Class: Manned. Type: Space Suits. Nation: USA. Manufacturer: Grumman.

A favourite of Life magazine in the 1960's, this Grumman / Space General design for extended lunar surface operations allowed the astronaut to withdraw his arms from the flexible manipulators and work within the pressurised 'cabin' of the can enclosing his upper torso and head.

Now I'm skeptical about the practicality of pressure suits for space colonization. I regard them as the equivalent of the old hard hat diving suits, but there is something to be said for a space suit that allows you to scratch your nose!

An alternative to pressure suits is the mechanical counter pressure suit and progress continues to be made:

Newman and colleague Jeffrey Hoffman, a former NASA astronaut and spacewalker, have been working with students and the design firm Trotti and Associates for seven years to build a viable BioSuit.

A current prototype of the suit consistently exerts pressures of about 20 kilopascals on its wearer but newer models have reached pressures of up to 25 to 30 kilopascals, which is about one-third that of the Earth's atmosphere and the target for spaceworthy BioSuit, researchers said. A fully functional suit could be made ready for spaceflight in about 10 years, they added.

At the heart of the BioSuit is mechanical counter pressure, which uses tightly wrapped layers of material that are both flexible and protective to the astronaut inside. The suit's layers are wrapped in a meticulous fashion -- based on three-dimensional maps of the human body in motion -- to provide structural support while maintaining mobility, researchers said.

If nothing else is the Biosuit is far more stylish then current space wear.

Future Shock

2007-07-16T05:30:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

The Tom Swift novels inspired many people including former NASA scientist Jack Cover who invented the Thomas A Swift Electric Rifle, commonly known as the Taser. Now tasers have been used by police forces for many years but progress never stops the Taser people have developed a wireless stun gun.

Above is a picture of the Taser XREP projectile, described by the company as follows:

The XREP comes pre-packaged in shell that is compatible with existing 12 gauge launchers. The transparent shell ensures officers properly identify the XREP prior to loading it in the shotgun.

As the TASER XREP is deployed, a rip cord attached between the shell and the projectile activates the projectile. Once activated, the TASER XREP is “live” as it comes out of the barrel. The XREP autonomously generates incapacitating Neuro Muscular Incapacitation for 20 continuous seconds -- enough time to close the distance and take the offender into custody without risking injury to officers.

Don't think you can pull the dart off either:

Another innovative and unique feature of the XREP nose is the reflex engagement electrode. A normal reaction to the pain of a projectile impact is for the subject to grab at the impact site. If the subject tries to grab or disconnect the XREP projectile, the reflex engagement electrodes complete a circuit allowing TASER NMI to discharge from the Nose Electrodes, through the subject’s body, out to the hand that grabbed the XREP. This creates a significant spread that allows the XREP pulses to affect a large body mass, causing overpowering Neuro Muscular Incapacitation.

However the ideal stun gun would not have any projectiles, instead it would use a stun beam, just like in those science fiction movies. Well another company, XADS, is working on just such a weapon.

Conventional stun guns - the best known of which is the Taser - work by firing darts into the target. The darts trail wires connected to the gun by which the electric shock is delivered. However, its use is limited to single targets at very close range. It is also highly controversial: 40 people have died following shocks from a Taser, although in every case the death has been attributable to other factors, including alcohol or drug use.

The new device works very differently: it fires a stream of plasma, or ionised gas, at its target. This provides a conductive channel for the electricity. Early versions have a limited range - just 3 metres - but because of the way it works, it will be possible to sweep the beam across multiple targets.

"We will be able to fire a stream of electricity like water out of a hose at one or many targets in a single sweep," said XADS president Peter Bitar.

The 21^st Century was supposed to bring us holidays in Space, flying cars and ray guns. I realize stun guns are useful for law enforcement , but I rather have a flying car.

The Perpetual Motion Monster

2007-07-14T05:32:00.000-06:00

Editor’s Note: Before I get all wound around yet another axle of discontent among my readers such as with the “Puddles on Mars” controversy, let me excuse my brashness as coming from a rather peculiar source:

I Am An American Scientist.

That means that while the Internet is embedded in the “World Wide” web, I am still an American Scientist embedded in the USA. That has implications – among them is the God granted right of freedom of speech and and a certian degree of implied audacity – all of which were either created behind heaven’s gates or were created right here in the good old USA – things like freedom, like the Internet (with or without Al Gore) and blogs. So, let’s all agree that we can still be scientists and still speak about controversy. If the PC Nazi’s show up and dictate my blog titles, then let’s just go ahead and have another war. We defeated the demons of fascism before and we can do it again.

There – I feel better now. On to the topic at hand….

The Perpetual Motion Monster rears his ugly head from time to time. The last time around it was called “cold fusion”. It all originated in the UK. This time, the UK is back again, but this time it is called “Orbo Steorn”. I know – it only sounds Scandinavian – but it is entirely UK through and thorough. Here’s the claim:

“Orbo produces free, clean and constant energy - that is our claim. By free we mean that the energy produced is done so without recourse to external source. By clean we mean that during operation the technology produces no emissions. By constant we mean that with the exception of mechanical failure the technology will continue to operate indefinitely. The sum of these claims for our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy, perhaps the most fundamental of scientific principles. The principle of the conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created or destroyed, it can only change form.”

Ok - what is this? Is the perpetual motion machine back (again)?

Yes – and big time. The UK company invited a panel of impartial scientific jurors to watch the machine in operation at the Kinentica Museum in London. 5000 applied to the Economist Magazine ad – 12 were selected. The “free energy” demonstration was to be held on July 5th. It was to have a world wide audience and streamed to the web. It never happened. Here is their press release:

"Further to Steorn’s announcement yesterday (5th July) regarding the technical difficulties experienced during the installation of its “Orbo” technology at the Kinentica Museum in London, Steorn has decided to postpone the demonstration until further notice. Sean McCarthy CEO stated that “technical problems arose during the installation of the demonstration unit in the display case on Wednesday evening. These problems were primarily due to excessive heat from the lighting in the main display area. Attempts to replace those parts affected by the heat led to further failures and as a result we have to postpone the public demonstration until a future date.”

What’s going on here? Is this yet another repeat of the Fleishman and Pons cold fusion debacle? Or has someone actually discovered a new way around (as they claim) the clearly laid pathway of the laws of energy and momentum? It seems obvious that these guys are certainly not charlatans, but then neither were Fleishman and Pons. The questions remaining are there: what did they actually discover – and - what happened in the Kinentica Museum that did not happen in their laboratories?

Perpetual motion nonsense? How can we ever know unless we go see? Any scientist who runs away from this show cannot call themselves a true scientist. Whether they succeed or not is never the point – but the method and the finding is very much! And yet, the stuffy, starched coated, arrogant, upward pointed noses of the robed inquisitors remains as always. Rather than finding all of this fascinating beyond measure, they rely on what Leonardo DaVinci referred to as “memory” rather than intellect. As for me, I am very much looking forward to attending the demonstration online. I don’t care if it’s boom or bust for Steorn – it is still interesting and a true-science test for the rest of us.

Check out their website by clicking here.

"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." Leonardo DaVinci

We Salute America!

2007-07-04T05:19:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

Today I received the message below from regular Quantum Limits reader Alex Bonnici. Alex is an American of Maltese heritage currently living in Malta. I'm an Australian also of Maltese background who agrees with Alex 100% . Only societies that encourage free thought, entrepreneurship and risk taking will succeed in the new frontiers. America, the country that gave the world the Wright brothers, Henry Ford, Bill Gates and , of course, the great Colonel Sanders, will pioneer the frontiers because of it very nature, it must. So today, this July 4^th , we salute the United States!

Do have a look at the full New York Times article. Its a great article on some remarkable Americans.

****************************

The Spirit of Innovation is still Alive and Well in America:

the Amateur Future of Space Travel

Today is July 4th, 2007, the birth date of a unique nation and a unique people. Two hundred and thirty one years since fifty-six men with an “iron pen” and on the authority of the good people of the colonies, signed the Declaration of Independence, mutually pledging to each other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, thus, creating a nation whose very name is synonymous with ideas of freedom, liberty, and justice. With the strength and resolve with which the Declaration was written these men forged a new nation and a new people noted for its rugged individualism and inventive spirit when confronted with the challenges of necessity in the face of a new frontier.

We are a nation whose structure of governance stands as the very hallmark of innovation in the very way a free people choose to conduct their lives. Our nation and its freedoms is the cauldron from which new and independent inventive spirit emerged. We are a people who never shied away from a challenge.

We are a nation on the forefront of science and invention. We are a nation that gave the world the light bulb, the phonograph, broke the sound barrier, that reached for the stars and came back with a piece of the Moon. We are a nation that is poised to defy the very elements pose by the frontiers of Earth, Space and Ocean. And, we will be the people that will one day pave the way towards the eventual settlement of these new frontiers. The following article from the New York times illustrates that this spirit of innovation is still alive and well in America.

"Americans, perhaps more so than people of other nations, have great faith in the idea of the outsider inventor. The stories of inventors who made it out of their garages (Steve Jobs) and those who stayed there (Philo T. Farnsworth) are part of the national mythology. Ever since Benjamin Franklin broke with his apprenticeship in Boston as a teenager and recreated himself as a freethinker and fearless inventor (a narrative, some say, he simply repeated and wrote large with the founding of the nation)"

Our Independence Day is just as much a celebration of our innovative spirit as a celebration of freedom. Happy Birthday America we have much to feel pride for in our brief history.

Alex Michael Bonnici

Malta, Europe

You call that a laser..This is a laser!

2007-06-26T05:18:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

(Credit: Air Force photo by Bobby Jones

You may be able to purchase powerful small lasers but if you want a genuine, fair dinkum, death ray its hard to go past the USAF Airborne Laser. Just the thing to zap missiles and invading UFOs.

The Pentagon's premier "directed energy" weapons system is a missile-zapping laser that could someday soon be tooling around in a modified 747, if all goes right for a program valued at $3.8 billion. This week, the Airborne Laser aircraft paid a visit to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland--well known, of course, as a commuter airport of sorts for the president--as the destination of what the Pentagon says was the plane's first-ever cross-country flight.

Washington area residents need not worry about a misfire. The plane isn't yet equipped with the "megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser beam" weapons system; that work is slated for sometime later this year. The Pentagon says the chemical laser has had 70 successful firings (on the ground, that is) over the past three years, and it is preparing for what it hopes will be the first takedown of a ballistic missile target in mid-2009. Eventually, the battle-ready chemical load would be sufficient to destroy an unspecified "many" missiles.

"We are going to put that big laser in the back...and then we're ready to shoot a missile down," Air Force Col. John Daniels, program director, said in a statement. "The biggest challenge we have right now is integration. The optics system is working. The battle management system works well. We even tracked an (intercontinental ballistic missile) with the sensors on the airplane."

I wonder how long it will be before it turns up in a movie.

Mars Alpine Style.

I have longed believed that the great age of human space exploration will come when true explorers, independent adventures, are able to get involved. They will reduce costs by taking an ultralight approach and accepting greater risks. Well, the founders ExplorersWeb, Tom and Tina Sjogren have announced their intention to mount a Mars expedition:

This is exactly the approach that has been missing in space exploration. We threw out rockets that took us to the moon; because we wanted to build something smarter. The shuttle fleet a result of that: An engineering marvel taking us nowhere.

It's clear that human space exploration is at a standstill. Nations and governments engage only tentative visions for human Mars missions. Vague talks concern mostly our return to the moon - and plans span timeframes 20-30 years from now.

It's clear that if we want to go - we'll have to do it the Amundsen way. So how would he have approached the task? The way we still do today. We ask where, when and how.

The target is set: We want to go to Mars. We know that the expedition will take around 1000 days. We know that trajectories show 2014 as a good expedition starting date. Now, we need to find means to get there and back. And start packing our sleds.

Now I think a private expedition to Mars by 2014 is a bit of a stretch. The astronauts and systems are going to need lots of testing before attempting such a long mission. Then there's issues such as micro-gravity and radiation. However the Moon though is another matter. Anyway I'll watch the project with interest.

No Ice Puddles on Mars?

2007-06-26T05:00:00.000-06:00

It seems the story we posted here that held the implication that there might be frozen puddles as icy sheens on Mars has been so soundly criticized that it has been withdrawn by the researchers themselves!

I would apologize to you, dear readers for even posting it – but as Ralph says, this is, after all, a blog not a learned journal. We will try and be as accurate as we can be, but sometimes the exciting news is just exciting news and turns out to be just wrong.

We were notified of this situation by a reader, Ms. Charlotte Wolter and we appreciate not only her notice of the situation but also her tolerance of our initial defense of science and those who courageously theorize sometimes off the wall theories (like relativity). But, Ms. Wolter caught us speculating a little too freely even after the article was rescinded. To her, we tip our hats and sit in sack cloth and ashes. Charlotte - you were correct and we admit it.

In any case – no ice puddles on Mars. Really? Is that entirely accurate? The United States and the Europeans are spending an awful lot of money to actually find water ice on Mars – and I have recently seen the Mars bound Phoenix (just 37 days from launch) ready to fly to the poles and do just that! But alas, it probably won’t be found and ice sheens… or will it? Wait a minute! Do we count the polar caps as ice sheens, many meters thick? Water or carbon dioxide or both? NASA is hoping for both. Hmmm – we’ll examine this idea of ice on Mars after Phoenix lands and digs into the white stuff to see exactly what it is made of.

Ice sheens on Mars – imagine it. Impossible? Or is the fantastic idea worth the tens of millions it will take Phoenix to go find it? We shall see.

Until then – thank you Ms. Wolter for keeping us honest and straight!

Undersea Getaway

2007-06-24T05:11:00.001-06:00

It has always been a goal of mine to develop and launch an undersea habitat that can be used as a weekend getaway. Fortunately, the Atlantica Expeditions has given us that opportunity! In a few weeks, the Atlantica Expeditions will be releasing the first drawings of the New Worlds Explorer – a two man habitat rated for 48 hour visits to the undersea world. It can, of course, also be used in a lake environment.

It was my first goal to build it for myself as a personal habitat that can be towed behind a regular automobile on a standard boat trailer. It can be launched like a boat, towed to the site, submerged, used, resurfaced and towed back home, all during a weekend outing. Or, it can remain on the bottom for a season of use. Those were the parameters of the design process.

Having had much experience with this entire process, I was able to make some design adjustments to the habitat to mitigate the worst and most difficult parts of the experience (such as submergence and hauling around many tons of mass) and make the process somewhat painless.

The habitat itself weighs in at about the same weight as an average recreational boat and can be towed behind a single axel trailer. The ballast mass for the habitat is launched separately. That was the only way this habitat could be handled with an ordinary boat trailer and could be launched from most boat ramps. Therefore, this experience is unlike a boat experience, even though it is designed to use boating infrastructures.

The aquanauts using this habitat are required to be proficient at SCUBA. The ballast block placement requires the bottom site to be surveyed for suitability prior to placing it there. The ballast block is also launched by a boat trailer, towed to the site and submerged, sitting on the bottom and waiting for the habitat to dock. Obviously this has all happened before the planned weekend outing.

It would have been possible to integrate the ballast block into the habitat, but it would have doubled the size, caused its weight to increase many times and required a crane lift into the water, since it could not have been launched by an ordinary vehicle at an ordinary ramp. Separating the ballast block from the habitat enables the use of ordinary infrastructure.

When the New Worlds Explorer arrives on site, the aquanauts descend to the bottom, hook up a spare SCUBA bottle to the ballast block and raise it to the surface. It is then connected to the habitat. Valves are cycled on the ballast block and it pulls it down to the bottom where the weekend undersea begins! The aquanauts simply reverse this process to raise it back up again when the weekend is over.

If the aquanauts wish to move to another place, it is a relatively simple matter to raise the ballast block and tow it to the new site.

The Atlantica Expeditions will be proving this concept out not only for use as an Expeditions asset undersea, but also for potential commercial development of this habitat sometime in the future. It will give us the opportunity to test all the ideas and design characteristics for integrating into a habitat that will allow just about anyone who wishes to live undersea on a regular basis access to Aquatica in their own personal habitat. We are estimating that these habitat systems will cost about the same as a mid-range recreational boat – and that was also another goal – making it affordable.

For more information, you can review it here in more detail at the Atlantica site in mid-July.

Undersea Colonies - Rejected Ideas

2007-06-14T04:29:00.000-06:00

The book, Undersea Colonies is in the final proof stage and the real copies should start rolling off the publisher’s presses next week, I hope.

However, until that time I wanted to share with you some of the ideas we rejected from the book about permanent undersea colonization and the development of “off the shelf” technologies” to make it happen.

The first rejected idea is this one that could have played a part in the “Undersea Communications” chapter. It just seemed a little too connected to the surface interface to meet our standards. I do hope the guy actually made his call before the water rose any higher.

This is yet another rejected proposal that would have fit nicely in the “Commuting” chapter. However, we were not convinced that the mode of transport in question had any reliable miles left for its undersea responsibilities. This idea was rejected in the chapter on “Commuting” as well. While it is definitely a clear illustration of an undersea landing strip, again, we were concerned about the reliability of the transport mode after the “one shot” philosophy of use.

Finally, we rejected this poor man’s proposal of permanent undersea living, even though he was clearly demonstrating how to live undersea without the benefit of a habitat. If he actually made it 24 hours in this rig, we were concerned that he was in danger of permanent trench-foot, and this we could not tolerate in the colonies.

While none of these examples made it into the book, we hope you'll pick up a copy to read about all those ideas that did make it!

Water puddles on Mars?

2007-06-09T01:03:00.000-06:00

Ralph Buttigieg

Sydney, NSW

Australia

courtesy Ron Levin

Regular readers would know of my interest the search for liquid water on Mars. Perhaps its just my desire to find new dive sites. However, two scientists Ron Levin and Daniel Lyddy, think they have found liquid water puddles on Mars. Ron Levin's father is Mars Viking Lander investigator Gilbert Levin of whom Dennis has already written about.

Mars rover finds "puddles" on the planet's surface 15:33 08 June 2007 NewScientist.com news service David Chandler

A new analysis of pictures taken by the exploration rover Opportunity reveals what appear to be small ponds of liquid water on the surface of Mars.

The report identifies specific spots that appear to have contained liquid water two years ago, when Opportunity was exploring a crater called Endurance. It is a highly controversial claim, as many scientists believe that liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars today because of the planet’s thin atmosphere.

If confirmed, the existence of such ponds would significantly boost the odds that living organisms could survive on or near the surface of Mars, says physicist Ron Levin, the report's lead author, who works in advanced image processing at the aerospace company Lockheed Martin in Arizona.

Along with fellow Lockheed engineer Daniel Lyddy, Levin used images from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's website. The resulting stereoscopic reconstructions, made from paired images from the Opportunity rover's twin cameras, show bluish features that look perfectly flat. The surfaces are so smooth that the computer could not find any surface details within those areas to match up between the two images.

The imaging shows that the areas occupy the lowest parts of the terrain. They also appear transparent: some features, which Levin says may be submerged rocks or pebbles, can be seen below the plane of the smooth surface.

The smoothness and transparency of the features could suggest either water or very clear ice, Levin says.

"The surface is incredibly smooth, and the edges are in a plane and all at the same altitude," he says. "If they were ice or some other material, they'd show wear and tear over the surface, there would be rubble or sand or something."

His report was presented at a conference of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and will be published later this year in the institute's proceedings.

No signs of liquid water have been observed directly from cameras on the surface before. Reports last year pointed to the existence of gullies on crater walls where water appears to have flowed in the last few years, as shown in images taken from orbit, but those are short-lived flows, which are thought to have frozen over almost immediately.

Levin and other researchers, including JPL's Michael Hecht, have published calculations showing the possibility of "micro-environments" where water could linger, but the idea remains controversial.

“The temperatures get plenty warm enough, but the Mars atmosphere is essentially a vacuum," says Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, developer of the Mars rovers' mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometers. That means any water or ice exposed on the surface evaporates or sublimes away almost instantly, he says.

But, he adds, "it is theoretically possible to get liquid water within soil, or under other very special conditions". The question is just how special those conditions need to be, and whether they ever really are found on Mars today.

If there were absolutely no wind, says Christensen, you might build up a stagnant layer of vapour above a liquid surface, preventing it from evaporating too fast. “The problem is, there are winds on Mars… In the real world, I think it's virtually impossible," he told New Scientist....

Now all the scientific debate in the world won't settle the matter. Science is based on observation and experimentation not debate or consensus so the researchers have proposed an experiment. Lets hope they get to put it to the test.

Although the rover is now miles away from this site, Levin proposes a simple test that would prove the presence of liquid if similar features are found: use the rover's drill on the surface of the flat area. If it is ice, or any solid material, the drill will leave unmistakable markings, but if it is liquid there should be no trace of the drill's activity.....

Update. No Puddles On Mars. 26/6/2007 Looks like the Martian water puddles I mention turned out to be a false lead. The scientists have withdrawn their paper.

Undersea Colonies Finalized

2007-06-01T10:09:00.000-06:00

(Click on the cover to see a larger view)

The Book, Undersea Colonies is now substantially complete including the final edition of the cover, shown. The book will be sent to the publisher a week from today and should be available for shipment in mid-June. Here is the text on the back of the book:

“Of all one hundred billion humans who have ever lived, not a single one has gone to live permanently undersea. While we have had the technology to settle this vast, three dimensional domain for over half a century, it remains empty of outposts, colonies or cities – or even of a single settler. While its immense territory covers nearly three quarters of the globe, no one has ever gone there to stay. In this book, Dennis Chamberland traces the history of the aquanaut from the first tentative 24 hour experiment in 1962 until today. Surprisingly, a careful reading of the record of humankind’s penetration of the oceans reveals misdirected starts, misunderstandings of the human’s capacity to adapt and, eventually, a great abandonment of the quest. But now, Chamberland unveils a visionary strategy and a fresh, new look at previous challenges that will soon open up the expansive undersea regions called Aquatica. Here will arrive 21st century pioneers, colonists and families who will become the first Aquaticans in what may yet prove to be the greatest human adventure in all of history.”

Thanks to Astronaut Duane Graveline and Alex Michael Bonnici for the kind advance reviews!

If you would like to order the book in advance, let me know by clicking here. The cover price is $17.99 but for my friends and QuantumEditions.com readers, you can have it for cost plus shipping!