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Feb 6, 2012

The runaway greenhouse reversal: Cooling Venus

Posted by in categories: chemistry, existential risks, futurism, habitats, space

As we all know, Venus’s atmosphere & temperature makes it too hostile for colonization: 450°C temperatures and an average surface pressure almost 100 times that of Earth. Both problems are due to the size of its atmosphere — massive — and 95% of which is CO2.

The general consensus is that Venus was more like that of the Earth several billion years ago, with liquid water on the surface, but a runaway greenhouse effect may have been caused by the evaporation of the surface water and subsequent rise of greenhouse gases.

It poses not just a harsh warning of the prospects of global warming on Earth, but also a case study for how to counter such effects — reversing the runaway greenhouse effect.

I have wondered if anyone has given serious thought to chemical processes which could be set in motion on Venus to extract the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The most common gas in the Universe is of course hydrogen, and if sufficient quantities could be introduced to the Venusian atmosphere, with the appropriate catalysts, could the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere be eventually reversed back into solid carbon compounds, water vapor and oxygen? The effect of this would of course not only bring down the temperature, but return the surface pressure, with 95% of its atmosphere removed, to one more similar to that of Earth. Perhaps in adding other aerosols the temperatures could be reduced further and avoid a re-runaway effect.

I’d like to hear others thoughts on this. It would be a long term project — but would perhaps make our closest planet our most habitable one in the future — one we could turn into a habitat that would be very accessible, with ample oxygen, water and mineral resources… The study of such a process would also greatly benefit Earth in the event that theorized runaway greenhouse effects start to occur on our own planet, the strategies learned could save it. Other issues to address regarding Venus: lack of magnetic field and its slow rotation would have to be considered, though hardly off-putting, and 150ppm sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere would need to be cleansed — surely not insurmountable.

Feb 3, 2012

My case for Mars

Posted by in categories: habitats, space

There has been a lot of discussion about a lunar colony or at least a base as a precursor to sending humans to Mars. The advantages cited are its proximity to Earth, the use of telerobotics for construction, and the fact that we’ve been there before. My position is that it would be far easier to establish a self sufficient colony on Mars with existing technology.

One thing everyone agrees on is that local resources will have to be used. We now know that There has been a lot of geological and hydrological activity on Mars that has segregated and concentrated useful ore bodies that can be exploited with current extractive technology. One type of mineral of interest is the occurrence of iron and magnesium carbonate formations on the surface. Magnesium carbonate is easily converted by heating to magnesium oxide, the primary component of a type of cement that I am researching as a construction material for Mars. The widespread occurrence of sulfate salts also gives reason to believe that metal sulfide ore bodies are also available there. This type of ore can easily be refined with simple electrolytic equipment. The same metal refining on the Moon would require grinding and processing basalt with a lot of heavy equipment.

I would argue that Mars also has a more friendly environment. First, it has higher gravity than the moon, at 38% of Earth’s gravity. This may prove to be significant in minimizing the health effects of reduced gravity. The higher gravity would also aid in many industrial processes such as ore separation and concrete consolidation. Mars also has an atmosphere, however thin. While 4 to 8 millibars may not sound like much, it is enough to burn up a lot of micrometeorites before they reach the surface, reducing the danger of micrometeorite damage. It may also help reduce the danger of galactic cosmic rays, but that will need to be tested. One thing that is certain from my own research is that the thin atmosphere is enough to allow magnesium oxychloride cement to cure before a significant amount of water has evaporated from it, and prevent boiling during the curing process. On the airless Moon, this type of cement would boil violently and the water would evaporate before it would cure. The total lack of atmosphere on the Moon would preclude the use of any cement that depends on water for curing.

Dust will be the biggest challenge to machinery in either place, and I argue that it is much less of a challenge on Mars. We have already studied lunar dust, and it is composed of fractured particles that retain sharp edges and points, with no mechanisms for smoothing the surfaces such as wind or water movement. This makes Moon dust very abrasive to machinery (and air seals) and very irritating to human tissues on contact. Mars has annual wind storms that blow dust around the planet, and has had flowing water recently in it’s history. This would serve to smooth out Martian dust particles to something more closely resembling the kind of material found on Earth, which we can more easily deal with. As further evidence, we have had rovers survive multiple dust storms and keep operating. I would say this is as much a testament to the Martian environment as it is to NASA engineers. Additionally, the dust has been found to be largely magnetic, meaning that magnetic filtration could be used to keep it out of habitable spaces.

Continue reading “My case for Mars” »

Jan 31, 2012

The Petty Non-offenses of the German Head of State, Taken together with His Brave Perseverance

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

[Disclaimer: This contribution does not reflect the views of the Lifeboat Foundation as with the scientific community in general, but individual sentiment — Web Admin]

These presently offer the world the unique chance that a high-ranking personality on the planet has the courage to ask to be officially informed about CERN’s legal status before the International Court of Crimes against Humanity before which it was accused more than 3 years ago without any defense ever having come forward.

The issue on hand concerns scientific ethics: CERN refuses to offer a counterargument for nearly 4 years. And, to the best of the present writer’s knowledge, no scientist speaks up in person on behalf of CERN by offering a scientific counterargument that he or she would be ready to defend. The much simplified 2010 theorem proving the danger was not even attempted to be defeated by a scientist.

Einstein’s famous gravitational frequency shift is accompanied by an equally strong change in particle mass and particle charge, both locally undetectable too. The new-found corollaries to Einstein’s famous “happiest thought” endow black holes with radically new properties. These properties not only render CERN’s detectors blind to its most hoped-for product (black holes) but do simultaneously enhance the probability of the successful production of black holes – an ominous combination. The first sufficiently slow specimen produced will take lodging inside earth – to grow there exponentially leaving nothing but a 2-cm black relic of our planet after a few years’ time.

Continue reading “The Petty Non-offenses of the German Head of State, Taken together with His Brave Perseverance” »

Jan 30, 2012

The Difference Between a Lunar Base and Colony

Posted by in categories: existential risks, habitats, lifeboat, space, sustainability

Recently, Newt Gingrich made a speech indicating that, if elected, he would want 10% of NASA’s budget ($1.7 billion per year) set aside to fund large prizes incentivizing private industry to develop a permanent lunar base, a new propulsion method, and eventually establishing a martian base.

THE FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY OF A LUNAR BASE
Commentators generally made fun of his speech with the most common phrase used being “grandiose”. Perhaps. But in 1996 the Human Lunar Return study estimated $2.5 billion from NASA to send and return a human crew to the Moon. That was before SpaceX was able to demonstrate significant reductions in launch costs. One government study indicated 1/3 of the cost compared to traditional acquisition methods. Two of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavies will be able to launch nearly as much payload as the Saturn V while doing so at 1/15th the cost of the same mass delivered by the Shuttle.

So, we may be at the place where a manned lunar base is within reach even if we were to direct only 10% of NASA’s budget to achieve it.

I’m not talking about going to Mars with the need for shielding but rather to make fast dashes to the Moon and have our astronauts live under Moon dirt (regolith) shielding while exploiting lunar ice for air, water, and hence food.

Continue reading “The Difference Between a Lunar Base and Colony” »

Jan 30, 2012

Einstein Found ”Gravitational Clock-slowing“ – I Say the Latter Finding Implies “Gravitational Photon-mass Reduction”

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

Every high-school student can confirm this conclusion, but the Albert-Einstein-Institute says this conclusion is false. For it implies if true that CERN is building a planet-buster – a fact which must perhaps not become known at the time of a planned new war.

“The house is burning but no one takes notice” (Buddha).

Jan 27, 2012

Factors on the pendulum of MBH decay/accretion & Aggregation

Posted by in categories: environmental, ethics, existential risks, particle physics, transparency

I write this post on specific request from Anthony, who kindly asked that I write a bottom line summary of what I found through my research which leads me to suggest the points should be cleared up in research and/or a safety conference on the LHC.

1. As HR is an unproven theory, it may prove to be ineffective compared to the math model. This regardless of Rossler’s Telemach theorem which attempts to prove this.

2. The G&M calculation on theoretical MBH accretion rates is fundamentally flawed, as it bases the analysis on one single MBH and fails to consider about MBH aggregation.

3. As HR is an unproven concept, it cannot be relied upon to detect MBH. The only method to be certain no MBH are created is to monitor unaccounted loss of mass/energy.

Continue reading “Factors on the pendulum of MBH decay/accretion & Aggregation” »

Jan 27, 2012

Did Nature Put a Chain Trap to Humanity? (and other Writings)

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

[Disclaimer: This contribution does not reflect the views of the Lifeboat Foundation as with the scientific community in general, but individual sentiment — Web Admin]

If one of the following three elements can be defused, the black-hole danger is over:

# 1: Black holes possess radically new properties in general relativity that make them both much more likely to arise and undetectable at CERN.

# 2: A new chaotic attractor (rotation-symmetric Shil’nikov-Kleiner attractor) exists in real space which implies exponential growth of black holes inside matter.

Continue reading “Did Nature Put a Chain Trap to Humanity? (and other Writings)” »

Jan 25, 2012

Does the Kerr Solution Support the New “Anchored Rotating Reeb Foliation” of Fröhlich?

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

Roy Kerr found a beautiful solution to the Einstein equation 49 years ago. He long deserves a Nobel Prize. The recent Telemach theorem (in print in the African Journal of Mathematics) modifies the appearance of every solution “close” to a black hole’s horizon.

What Dieter Fröhlich discovered in yesterday’s chaos course at the University of Tübingen started out from the fact that every rotating black hole has a nonrotating horizon owing to the infinite local slowdown of time. We had concluded before that the in-spiraling trajectories must form something like a “Reeb foliation” on the way to the unmoving horizon. He suddenly realized that an “anchored rotating Reeb foliation” is the answer.

I repeat: We had conjectured before that In between the outer unstable limit cycle of in-spiraling trajectories and the inner motionless horizon, there exists a “circular chain of cups” – non-crossing trajectories that in a U-turn-like fashion connect the two limiting trajectories (the unstable outer limit cycle and the stable inner limit cycle of opposite orientation). Such a beautiful differential-topological flow was discovered in 1952 by Georges Reeb (as had been pointed out to me by Art Winfree).

However, the problem is that the attractive inner limit cycle has rotation rate zero. Does this not destroy all hope for consistency? Fröhlich saw the solution in a flash: Put the standard Reeb foliation into a rapidly spinning motion, which makes no qualitative difference. Then smoothly reduce the cups’ rotation rate until the attractive inner limit cycle becomes a singular spiky (“star-node related”) limit cycle while the ring of “cups within cups” retains a constant rotation rate. The obtained “anchored rotating Reeb foliation” (anchored everywhere on the horizon) represents a new differential-topological prototype, embraced by nature.

It would be marvelous to get a response from Professor Kerr himself. (For J.O.R.)

Jan 21, 2012

My Story Aimed to Make a Planet Happy

Posted by in categories: existential risks, particle physics

I am a “specialist in non-specialization”, in the words of my late Austrian mentor Konrad Lorenz, and an “interdisciplinary hybrid” in those of my late American mentor Bob Rosen. IMy work in chaos theory is a little bit well known, in that I discovered a so-called “attractor” or “reproducible dynamic phenomenon” familiar in everyday experience (a hoarse voice and an idling motorcycle’s noise being examples). My subsequent discovery of “hyperchaos” was soon used as a diagnostic tool in wards for the newborn whose cries turn from chaos to hyperchaos in case of a crisis, as H. Herzel found out. My “brain equation” is also getting some recognition lately. My “smile theory” is my oldest but hardest to understand theory (though children typically have no difficulty with it!).

My recent “Telemach theorem” – named after Ulysses’ son Telemachus – is a much more frightening conceptual structure, however. It suggests that continuing escalation of the energy of operation of the Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva, Switzerland, indeed has the potential of forming dangerous mini Black Holes which could consume the Earth.

A proven implication of known physical laws – a theorem – is true until a counterargument is found that topples it. The name Telemach has to do with the youth of an ancient Greek myth who recognized a beggar as the long lost father he had believed was dead. In my title the acronym stands for Time, Length, Mass and Charge (T, L, M, Ch), four entities that can be measured in everyday life by means of simple devices — clocks, meter sticks, scales and volt meters.

You probably already know that there exists no “Ur-Second” in physics (because of Einstein’s work); but an “Ur-Meter” and an “Ur-Kilogram” and a “Universal Unit Charge” are believed to exist and are well known. The Ur-meter and the Ur-kilogram were actually quite costly and difficult to arrive at. The struggle took scientists and engineers many decades in furthering the science of measurement (Metrology) in this regard.

Continue reading “My Story Aimed to Make a Planet Happy” »

Jan 20, 2012

Old UNIX/IBM control systems: Potential time bombs in Industry

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, defense, events, existential risks, military, nuclear energy

It may be a point of little attention, as the millennium bug came with a lot of hoo-ha and went out with a whimper, but the impact it had on business was small because of all the hoo-ha, not in spite of it. And so it is with some concern that I consider operating system rollover dates as a potential hazard by software malfunction at major industrial operations such as nuclear power stations and warhead controls, which in worst case scenario, could of course have disastrous implications due to out-dated control systems.

The main dates of interest are 19 January 2038 by when all 32-bit Unix operating systems need to have been replaced by at least their 64-bit equivalents, and 17 Sept 2042 when IBM mainframes that use a 64-bit count need to be phased out.

Scare mongering? Perhaps not. While all modern facilities will have the superior time representation, I question if facilities built in the 70s and 80s, in particular those behind the old iron curtain were or ever will be upgraded. This raises a concern that for example the old soviet nuclear arsenal could become a major global threat within a few decades by malfunction if not decommissioned or control systems upgraded. It is one thing for a bank statement to print the date wrong on your latest bill due to millennium bug type issues, but if automated fault tolerance procedures have coding such as ‘if(time1 > time2+N) then initiate counter-measures’ then that is quite a different matter entirely.

I believe this is a topic which warrants higher profile lest it be forgot. Fortunately the global community has a few decades on its hands to handle this particular issue, though all it takes is just one un-cooperative facility to take such a risk rather than perform the upgrades necessary to ensure no such ‘meltdowns’ occur. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…