The following essays from Musings from the Christian Left have been migrated from Geocities to Blogger:

A Private Space Transportation System

Going to Mars

Gravitational Propulsion

Aerospace Firm Management

Twenty-first Century Homes: Interindependence

The Twenty-first Century Career

Building the Space Station

Construction of International Space Station Alpha is almost done. It now has a six person crew. It has been a long, slow, slog, with intense pool training for every mission as doctors, scientists and pilots are turned into extraterrestiral construction workers.

There has to be a better way - and there is one.

Most station modules have been ready for a long, long time. Instead of making building the station a long, drawn out program to keep NASA and the aerospace firms in eating money, I would have sent up a crew of real construction workers and started with a life-boat like station. I would then have begun launching modules one after the other on big, dumb, boosters - letting the crew go home when the job was done. In order to forestall serious damage, I would have put up as part of the "construction shack" two or three modules linked with a cross beam and rotating to produce artificial gravity. Of course, if that becomes your base site, the whole station might have gravity in the add on process, with mirco-gravity platforms in station annexes or in a center portion which is connected to the spinning portion with a flywheel so that it doesn't move.

As parts of the station get done, scientists or tourists could come aboard - as long as they stay out of the way - and have something to offer in the way of budget.

Think of how much money could have been saved if we had built the station in this fashion. I'm not going to say we could have knocked it out in a weekend, but it would not have taken years to finish. Some modules may be ending their useful life before the whole thing is put up! Unreal.

If you like my approach, drop me a line at bindner_space@yahoo.com. There are a group of us who want to do space much more cost effectively than the current welfare program for bureaucrats and aerospace companies. The sad thing is, if you do it cheaply, as I am proposing, you end up doing more of it - so the aerospace companies are shooting themselves in the foot for going with the Construction Project as Test Flight Program approach.

The other thing I would do is drop ground based mission control from the equation. Control will come entirely from space. If instrument monitoring of systems is necessary 24-7, then the station should have a control room that does that, with watches posted to do that. If your agree, contact me.

Making a Steak

The drive for artificial habitats will be largely academic until someone answers the question, "How do you make a steak (without a cow)?" I am of course not talking about those veggy steaks or about how to actually prepare a steak when meat has been provided. I am talking about how to make synthetic muscle fiber that looks and tastes like the real McCoy and contains enough saturated fat to clog your arteries.

This problem is basically one of reverse engineering. So let's reverse engineer last Saturday's dinner, shall we? The steak I ate was a Porterhouse, the ultimate steak. It contained four basic elements. Hard bone, connective tissue, muscle fiber and saturated fat. The challenge is making each of these. The bone is mainly calcium. Because we do not eat it, the details are not that important. The connective tissue, although inedible, is essential to hold the meat, fat and bone together. Fat we know how to create. The essential problem is how to synthesize artificial muscle fiber.

We can also treat this problem as one of cybernetics. We know what the put of our system is - we just stated it in our reverse engineering description. The inputs are known by any animal husbandry major, they are what a steer eats. All of these can be grown with little effort.

The challenge is to duplicate the process by which these inputs become a steer. Also, synthesizing milk would be nice, although from what I hear soy milk can come pretty close.

The biochemistry of muscle fiber is pretty well known. Cell biologists know what proteins are contained within it. The also know how the composition of the cell membrane. The key is to take this knowledge and turn it into a process which takes what amounts to home grown animal feed and turn it into a synthetic steak. This process can then be turned into a household appliance, which will also add strategically placed fat for our synthetic steak.

I am speculating here, but I think the process may be as easy as spinning the correct mix of proteins and encasing the thread in synthetic cell membrane. On the show 2057, a dot matrix printer was thought to be the instrument to regrow an artificial heart. Could it be that easy to grow a steak? I would think so.

Currently, the demand is not there for such artificial beef. However, for space travel and in reaction to the end of cheap fossil fuels, the day when this is cost effective is sure to come.

Egg yoke should be much easier to synthesize, which is good because nothing goes with a good steak then Sauce Bernaise.

Fixing the Station

The AP reports in the Washington Post that the astronauts have fixed the jammed solar panel.

Congratulations are in order, especially since this was an unrehearsed mission. Now that we have a team trained to work without rehearsal, we are sending them back to Earth.

If we built skyscrapers and bridges this way there would be no skyscrapers or interstate highways.

We could, right now, today, change how we do things. I am sure that by now all the components are ready. Let us consider, if not now, than at some future date, launching everything into space on unmanned rockets and putting up a crew to just put everything together. Don't rehearse every turn of the screw, just find a crew who knows how to do every action that would be required and set them lose at it. The station would be done in weeks, rather than years, and at substantially less cost.

This would also be a good SOP for doing the Luna and Mars colonies. Its time to at lease loosen, if not cut, the cord to misssion control. They may have a bit of separation anxiety, so send a few of them into space if required (kind of like on-site architects). Its time to get real on space development. There are way to many planners and not enough doers. Lets change that.

NASA Ready to Launch a New Construction Misison

It's a sad way to run a railroad. IMHO, they should launch all the components using boosters and send up a construction crew to install them as fast as they can. Leave the crew up there to train while they are doing and keep mission control out of it. If mission control engineers are essential to construction, send them up too - and build a big enough station to handle the crew load. You would think the most powerful nation on earth would have a decent space station, not this wimpy effort.

What's Next for Space?

With the changing of the guard on Capital Hill, we can expect different priorities in Congress.

Hopefully that won't mean a diminuation of spending on space exploration, including the return to the Moon and the Mission to Mars.

The expected drawdown in Iraq can only be good news for the rest of the budget. Perhaps this is the time to move the NASA Appropriation from the Housing and Other Agencies Subcommittee on Defense in the to the Defense Research and Development Appropriation. This gives progressives political cover to draw down defense spending while still maintaining the aerospace business base. This is not to militarize Space but to demiliterize Earth.

It is tempting to want to kill the Mission to Mars or the International Space Station in order to balance the budget or provide more for fighting poverty. This would be a waste of resources. Not financial resources, but human resources. While the money can be moved, the people doing the work can't be simply redirected to teaching in the inner cities (we'll some could and should, but that is beside the point) or feeding the hungry. If we cut the space budget, the firms who are losing business will press for more defense business. This is what we DON'T WANT. In order to remove the temptation, move the line item and committee responsibility as I have suggested.

Responding to Climate Calamity

The literature and debate on global warming is disappointing, not so much for its ability to predict the effects of global warming, but in the paucity of response to it. We know the earth is getting warmer, as it should since historically the planet is colder than it has been for much of its history. The Earth can take whatever is thrown at it, whether it be from the release of carbon gases to changes in the sun spot cycle. The lack in the literature and debate is in how shall mankind respond.

If global warming were the only possible source of environmental calamity, changing CAFRE standards might be enough. Sadly it is not.

Our greatest danger is from ourselves, but more directly. Granted, the Soviets are no longer, but the Russians still have the same weaponry. More chillingly, North Korea is testing the product of their nuclear development program.

I was one of those who grew up in the shadow of nuclear destruction. The Day After was one of those cultural events that touched everyone in my generation, yet compared to a real nuclear war, The Day After was peanuts.

This possible future was what motiviated me to work out an economic system which would both bridge the gap between communism and capitalism and, much more importantly, make economically possible for anyone the ownership of a food and fuel producing underground home. Originally, my goal was a series of books entitled "Rebuilding" which would synthesize the knowledge required to put society back together after a nuclear holocaust. This later evolved into a single book in two variations, Musings from the Christian Left (for the Blue states) and The Christian Libertarian Party Manifesto (for the Red states). The blogs for these works are The Christian Left and The Christian Libertarian Party.

Now, of course, we have the rise of sectarian violence, from al Queda cells fighting for a world-wide muslim Caliphate under Osama bin Laden to the Iraqi civil war to Eric Rudolph, David Koresh and Timothy McVeigh striking violent blows for Christian separatism and an increasingly shrill movement of conservative authoritarian leaders exhorting their followers to the belief that the federal judiciary is illegitmate. If religion continues as a source of violence, given beliefs in equally violent prophesies, this can only end badly. In order to help avert this, I offered a better approach to Christianity, which also made it into my books.

The Musings/Manifesto go from heavenly topics, such as the existence of God to a more humanistic view of both salvation and morality, to a commentary on social issues and budgetary issues to the heart of the book, a description of how Social Security reform can lead to a culture of employee-ownership and how this can be used to give employees a way to afford a habitat that can be used to produce food and alcohol fuel in order to survive a nuclear, environmental or sectarian catastrophe. This culture can be carried via union-owned multinationals to the entire planet, so that the other fear - overpopulation - is overcome. If workers in developing countries own their own food producing habitats, it doesn't matter how quickly they reproduce. In fact, the more the merrier. After addressing some structural reforms in American government, the discussion turns to the advent of regional government in the United States and then an expansion of our Union to include first our allies and then the developing world. In order to cement the gains from piece, an expanded space program is proposed (so that the military-industrial complex finds something else to do). Part of that something else is the design of a the habitat that will allow individuals to survive environmental catastrophe from one of many sources.

The economic reforms that will allow the construction of these homes are more fully described on the Iowa Center for Fiscal Equity home page and blog. Briefly, I describe how the President's Social Security reforms can be modified to result in the direct ownership of industry by American and later all workers (so that the playing field between American and overseas workers remains level). To do this, the employee contribution to the old age and survivors insurance fund would be equalized for each employee, the contribution cap would be raised or eliminated (thus lifting the average) and at least half and later all of these funds invested in voting shares of the employer. This would quickly lead to control of firms by employees through their union or professional association representatives and a new culture of ownership in the union movement (no more strikes or restrictive work rules) as well as a more democratic model of management (open competition for jobs to the lowest bidder and election by subordinants to break ties). Pay would become more equal, with the tax system used to guarantee a living wage based on family size and incentive pay for actual accomplishment rather than for conformity with management. Using these features, all of industry will transform, as these features will attract the best workers, especially if employee-owned firms hire 20 year olds and pay for their later undergraduate and graduate educations in exchange for less of a wage premium upon graduation and the promise of incentive pay for inventions. Such a climate of innovation is necessary to build the kind of habitats needed to survive this century.

Of course, the pitfall of this approach is that it may provoke enemies among those who lose power. The authoritarians will denounce me as the anti-christ for proposing a Christian humanism which unites the planet. The atheists and New Agers will not like how I propose an expanded and more well funded role for religious charities as a replacement for government (since they work better). If they unite against the success of the program I describe, there will still be an environmental catastrophe. Shouldn't we leave well enought alone? No. Many of the forces the espouses. Many would happen anyway. A plan such as this may be our only salvation.

New Panels for ISS Alpha

The Washington Post reports that International Space Station Alpha has a new set of solar panels. This is an accomplishment and I congratulation them but I just have to say this is one hell of a way to run a railroad.

I would think it would be better to have a crew of generalists up there to construct the station and use big dumb boosters to launch all the components in a short amount of time. Then you put them together in a continuous effort until it is done.

The way NASA is doing it is job security for the Shuttle program and for Mission Control and Mission Planning. We could save a lot of money by not training for every turn of the wrench.

If you want job security from success rather from government largesse, drop us a note.

A Private Space Transportation System (Geocities Rescue)

In the wake of the Columbia disaster, it is time to create a new strategy for the exploration of space. This essay advocates formation of a consortium to study, market, design and build an integrated Space Transportation System (STS), including a permanently manned and privately owned Space Station.

Why is this a Christian Left topic, you may ask? Because providing for a privately funded international Space Transportation Systems diverts resources that are otherwise be used to perpetuate the war machine. Additionally, creating a new consortium to construct the system provides another setting where 21st Century Economics is applicable.

Department of Defense budget cuts at the end of the cold war have eroded the American aerospace business base. While the war on terrorism has revived the Defense Budget for a time, it is obvious that we soon run out of enemies. If union-owned firms and Employee Stock Ownership Plans adopt the 21st century management style I have described above, and this management style leads to the adoption of democracy in American multi-nationals, the need for a large military-industrial complex diminishes further. As this need shrinks, something must go into the void in order to prevent the creation of some conflict or enemy as a way to keep the military-industrial establishment alive. The natural answer is the exploration of space.

On the space science front, both the Administration and Congress seem reluctant to expand the space program to pick up the slack. Like other public programs, the space program is limited in its creativity to programmed activity, status quo assumptions and budget ceilings. An illustration of the state of space technology is the failure to take greater advantage of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 collision with Jupiter. An STS could have provided a special mission to the far side of Jupiter to observe the actual impacts, and to make closer observations of the phenomenon. Recently, International Space Station Alpha downsized due to contracting, funding and safety problems. The size of the crew has been cut to two for the foreseeable future, making accomplishment of the station’s scientific mission all but impossible. The slow pace at which ISS Alpha is built under-uses contract capacity and is wasteful. Fixed costs and overhead are charged to smaller and smaller pieces of variable effort over a longer, more expensive time period. This increases the total cost of the system over one procured more quickly. A more efficiently procured system is also a better system, as optional features not otherwise affordable are added. Part of the blame rests with the decision to rely on the Space Shuttle. A privately managed system would have long ago gone with a more efficient alternative rather than succumbing to bureaucratic inertia.

Funding the Space Transportation System with appropriated dollars at any speed raises serious questions of generational equity. Generational equity matches program funding to program use. Using this criterion, it is unfair for the current generation to fully fund a project with a useful life as long as an integrated STS, especially if doing so directly worsens a national operating deficit crisis.

If government is incapable of taking space exploration to the next level, perhaps it is time for the private sector to step in. Aerospace firms must radically refocus their efforts away from contracted science, with its cost reimbursement inefficiencies and evolve, leaving the government behind.

A more robust Space Transportation System is financed by consortia of defense firms through bond issues, possibly with government guarantees. Fees for transport, research, manufacturing and satellite maintenance from NASA, DoD, the Department of Commerce, universities, corporations, other nations and excursion passengers finance operations and the repayment of debt.

Consortium Creation
Actually building a Space Transportation System is a multi-step process. The first phase is consortium creation. An Industrial Space Consortium of aerospace firms is established under the control of a consolidated Board of Governors, with an Operations Committee made up of Component project managers and an Executive Director to oversee the entire effort. Consortium creation includes all activities from reception of Investment Proposals to the final agreement forming the consortium. Beyond that, I spare you further plan details, although I will share them with interested aerospace firms for a nominal fee.

Preliminary Analysis
The second phase is Preliminary Analysis. Each member company contributes to the analyses of the STS as a whole, and for any components or sub-components the Consortium member wishes to design, develop, build and/or operate. Members companies prepare white papers for group discussion to assess the current state of space transportation and research, both public and private. They identify potential public and private sector clients for assigned segments of the STS, both in terms of available resources and willingness-to-pay, and draft preliminary schedules and system engineering studies. Member companies explore debt financing options, as well as the possibility of seeking loan guarantees from various governments for certain research, development and construction operations. Here are some of the possible parts of an integrated Space Transportation System:

1. Space Station
The central component of and advanced Space Transportation System is a manned space station complex, including manned and unmanned weigh stations and depots at various altitudes. Manned stations provide bases for all other operations. The main station component is large enough for the generation of an artificial gravity field, food production, personnel and material transfer, energy processing, permanent habitat areas, administration and hospitality for occupants of facilities without artificial gravity. Major systems in such a station include superstructure, cooling, food production, energy, gravity, emergency propulsion, astronomy, research, radar, docking, habitat, vehicle and satellite maintenance and electronics.

2. Satellite construction, repair and maintenance
Satellite construction, repair and maintenance facilities are included on a manned space station, or be based there for accomplishment in satellite orbit. Given raw materials and components from the surface and placement of manufacturing personnel on the manned station, satellite assembly and maintenance is accomplished in orbit. The key question to be considered is whether the personnel involved in building satellites on earth are willing to live in space.

3. Depot and provisioning
Raw material provisioning can be accomplished using unmanned launches to a set of coordinates designated as an orbiting depot. This depot contains a manned habitat and a maneuvering vehicle for the management of material containers in orbit. Separate vehicles ferry material from the depot staging area to the permanent manned station.

4. Manned space flight, passenger carriage
A regimen for cheaper manned space flight, and the carriage of paying tourists is sure to evolve, given demand. Integration with Space Shuttle and National Aerospace Plane vehicles, as well as newly designed systems, is part of this task. This system includes routes to and from various Space Transportation System components, including eventual trips to the Moon and points beyond.

5. Lunar colony
It is also time to undertake advanced studies of a lunar colony, if only to test nearby technology that is necessary for a mission to Mars. Such a colony potentially provides a permanent staging area for space exploration, a permanent human habitat, and an alternate source for raw materials for orbital facilities.

6. Space exploration
The Space Transportation System is an essential part of an integrated space exploration program, both to provide raw materials for orbital facilities and to provide facilities for governmental and academic clients. The foci of such a program are science and exploitation of sources of raw materials. This activity is also a rich source of clients.

7. Ceilonautic Institute
A not-for-profit research and teaching institute is established for research and education in the space science and transport training, including mission, manufacturing and research personnel. Candidates for employment in the Space Transportation System are trained, as well as paying students from governmental space agencies.

8. Inner-space Exploration - Ocean Habitats
Companion studies are accomplished on modular undersea habitats to further study the possibility of self-contained environments with air cycling, food production, and water purification systems.

9. Nuclear Research
Nuclear research that is no longer safely accomplished on earth is accomplished in orbital and lunar facilities, including development of more efficient reactors, waste management and storage systems, inter-planetary nuclear propulsion systems and deep space energy generation systems.

Initial Design
The actual Space Transportation procurement occurs in three phases: Initial Design, Development and Construction, and Operations. A long-term payment strategy over the life of the system is suggested to guarantee generational equity. The Initial Design involves heavy up front design and testing efforts, which eventually save on construction and support costs. It is accomplished by the issuing of cost based research contracts and in house research projects that put a premium on creativity. A special capital fund is set up, with the government loan guarantees, to fund these costs.

Development and Construction
The Development and Construction phase includes all activities from Full Scale Development to Initial Support. The Consortium and its member companies undertake this phase and assume the costs of all the preliminary efforts. Once the design and funding plan are complete a funding package is put together. This package takes the form of a multi-year bond issue, and is assembled in the same way state and local governments fund capital projects. A financial and responsibility audit occurs at this point to assure program financial integrity. Part of the funding plan includes contingencies for program cancellation. When the package is structured and approved, loan guarantee requests are submitted to the relevant government agencies for approval of loan guarantees, which are enacted by Congressional Authorization and Appropriations Committees. Revenue from STS operations fund the redemption of the bonds over the useful life of the STS. After funding is approved construction occurs as fast as Consortium member performance and delivery system capacity allows. The Consortium continues to execute this phase until the second year of full operation, with its central audit facility performing inspection, acceptance and audit functions, as well as any technical support required.

Operation
The last phase is Operation. It is performed by the Consortium, funded by revenue from clients in the public and private sectors. This continues from completion of construction to component obsolescence. A venture such as this offers a new way for aerospace firms to do business. After more discussion on a mission to Mars, we return to a description of how aerospace firms utilize 21st Century Management.