Lifeboat Foundation

The Rocky Mountain chapter of the American Institute of Astronautics & Aeronautics (AIAA) will be having their 2^nd Annual Technical Symposium, October 25 2013. The call for papers ends May 31 2013. I would recommend submitting your papers. This conference gives you the opportunity to put your work together in a cohesive manner, get feedback and keep your copyrights, before you write your final papers for journals you will submitting to. A great way to polish your papers.

Here is the link to the call for papers: http://www.iseti.us/pdf/RMAIAA_Call_For_Abstracts_2013-0507.pdf

Here is the link to the conference: http://www.iseti.us/pdf/RMAIAA_General_Advert_2013-0507.pdf

I’ll be presenting 2 papers. The first is a slightly revised version of the presentation I gave at the APS April 2013 conference here in Denver (http://www.iseti.us/WhitePapers/APS2013/Solomon-APS-April(20…45;15).pdf). The second is titled ‘The Mechanics of Gravity Modification’.

Continue reading “Mechanics of Gravity Modification” »

I had a great time at APS 2013 held April 13 — 16, 2013. I presented my paper “Empirical Evidence Suggest A Different Gravitational Theory” in track T10, Tuesday afternoon. A copy of the slides is available at this link.

http://www.iseti.us/WhitePapers/APS2013/Solomon-APS-April(20…45;15).pdf

Have fun.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author of the 12-year study An Introduction to Gravity Modification

The APS April Meeting 2013, Vol. 58 #4 will be held Saturday–Tuesday, April 13–16, 2013; Denver, Colorado.

I am very pleased to announce that my abstract was accepted and I will be presenting “Empirical Evidence Suggest A Need For A Different Gravitational Theory” at this prestigious conference.

For those of you who can make it to Denver, April 13–16, and are interested in alternative gravitational theories, lets meet up.

I am especially interested in physicists and engineers who have the funding to test gravity modification technologies, proposed in my book An Introduction to Gravity Modification.

Continue reading “American Physical Society (APS) Conference in Denver” »

Yesterday, March 25 2013, the Colorado Legislature passed a resolution making March 25, Aerospace Day. What a great way to celebrate Colorado’s participation in space endeavors. The state is the second largest employer of space related companies. Thanks to Colorado Space Business Roundtable (CSBR), the Colorado Space Coalition (CSC), the Rocky Mountain AIAA (RMAIAA), and the many sponsors who helped make this possible.

The sponsors are Aurora Chamber of Commerce, Ball Aerospace Technologies, GH Phipps Construction, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Metro State University of Denver, United Launch Alliance, Red Canyon Software, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Webster University, and the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum.

Picture of the Colorado Senate just after passing the resolution.

Continue reading “Colorado Celebrating Space Exploration” »

The University of Colorado Boulder holds its annual Gamow Memorial Lecture around this time of the year. This year, Feb 26, 2013, Brian Greene gave the lecture, on multiverses.

His talk was very good. He explained why there are 10⁵⁰⁰ possible variations to possible universes, and ours was just one of many possible universes, thus the term multiverse.

How interesting. This is an extension of the idea that the Earth or the Sun not being at the center of our Universe.

Continue reading “Brian Greene, String Theory & the Gamow Memorial Lectures” »

1. Thou shalt first guard the Earth and preserve humanity.

Impact deflection and survival colonies hold the moral high ground above all other calls on public funds.

2. Thou shalt go into space with heavy lift rockets with hydrogen upper stages and not go extinct.

Continue reading “Ten Commandments of Space” »

I continue to survey the available technology applicable to spaceflight and there is little change.

The remarkable near impact and NEO on the same day seems to fly in the face of the experts quoting a probability of such coincidence being low on the scale of millenium. A recent exchange on a blog has given me the idea that perhaps crude is better. A much faster approach to a nuclear propelled spaceship might be more appropriate.

Unknown to the public there is such a thing as unobtanium. It carries the country name of my birth; Americium.

A certain form of Americium is ideal for a type of nuclear solid fuel rocket. Called a Fission Fragment Rocket, it is straight out of a 1950’s movie with massive thrust at the limit of human G-tolerance. Such a rocket produces large amounts of irradiated material and cannot be fired inside, near, or at the Earth’s magnetic field. The Moon is the place to assemble, test, and launch any nuclear mission.

Continue reading “Petition for Americium Emergency Stockpile” »

A Point too Far to Astronaut
It’s cold out there beyond the blue. Full of radiation. Low on breathable air. Vacuous.
Machines and organic creatures, keeping them functioning and/or alive — it’s hard.
Space to-do lists are full of dangerous, fantastically boring, and super-precise stuff.

We technological mammals assess thusly:
“Robots. Robots should be doing this.”

Enter Team Space Torso
As covered by IEEE a few days ago, the DLR (das German Aerospace Center) released a new video detailing the ins & outs of their tele-operational haptic feedback-capable Justin space robot. It’s a smooth system, and eventually ground-based or orbiting operators will just strap on what look like two extra arms, maybe some VR goggles, and go to work. Justin’s target missions are the risky, tedious, and very precise tasks best undertaken by something human-shaped, but preferably remote-controlled. He’s not a new robot, but Justin’s skillset is growing (video is down at the bottom there).

Now, Meet the Rest of the Gang:
NASA’s Robonaut2 (full coverage), the first and only humanoid robot in space, has of late been focusing on the ferociously mundane tasks of button pushing and knob turning, but hey, WHO’S IN SPACE, HUH? Then you’ve got Russia’s elusive SAR-400, which probably exists, but seems to hide behind… an iron curtain? Rounding out the team is another German, AILA. The nobody-knows-why-it’s-feminized AILA is another DLR-funded project from a university robotics and A.I. lab with a 53-syllable name that takes too long to type but there’s a link down below.

Continue reading “Keeping Humans Safe in Space: Meet Robot Torsos Justin, Robonaut, SAR-400, & AILA” »

With the recent meteor explosion over Russia coincident with the safe-passing of asteroid 2012 DA14, and an expectant spectacular approach by comet ISON due towards the end of 2013, one could suggest that the Year of the Snake is one where we should look to the skies and consider our long term safeguard against rocks from space.

Indeed, following the near ‘double whammy’ last week, where a 15 meter meteor caught us by surprise and caused extensive damage and injury in central Russia, while the larger anticipated 50 meter asteroid swept to within just 27,000 km of Earth, media reported an immediate response from astronomers with plans to create state-of-the-art detection systems to give warning of incoming asteroids and meteoroids. Concerns can be abated.
ATLAS, the Advanced Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System is due to begin operations in 2015, and expects to give a one-week warning for a small asteroid – called “a city killer” – and three weeks for a larger “county killer” — providing time for evacuation of risk areas.

Deep Space Industries (a US Company), which is preparing to launch a series of small spacecraft later this decade aimed at surveying nearby asteroids for mining opportunities, could also be used to monitor smaller difficult-to-detect objects that threaten to strike Earth.

However — despite ISON doom-merchants — we are already in relatively safe hands. The SENTRY MONITORING SYSTEM maintains a Sentry Risk Table of possible future Earth impact events, typically tracking objects 50 meters or larger — none of which are currently expected to hit Earth. Other sources will tell you that comet ISON is not expected to pass any closer than 0.42 AU (63,000,000 km) from Earth — though it should still provide spectacular viewing in our night skies come December 2013. A recently trending threat, 140-metre wide asteroid AG5 was given just a 1-in-625 chance of hitting Earth in February 2040, though more recent measurements have reduced this risk to almost nil. The Torino Scale is currently used to rate the risk category of asteroid and comet impacts on a scale of 0 (no hazard) to 10 (globally-impacting certain collisions). At present, almost all known asteroids and comets are categorized as level 0 on this scale (AG5 was temporarily categorized at level 1 until recent measurements, and 2007 VK184, a 130 meter asteroid due for approach circa 2048–2057 is the only currently listed one categorized at level 1 or more).

Continue reading “ATLAS — Watchmen To The Hour That The Sky Falls In” »