Theology for Scientists in 15 minutes

Will there be a singularity? Look at Jungian personality functions to answer the question (as well as cultural theory). Computers can do Reason, can do Intuition (which is group reason or group emotion - either knowing it or growing it). A computer can certainly know values and can expertly do sensory - although it cannot experience sensuality. Computers cannot have a limbic system. It won't say no based on its own need for pleasure or authenticity. We won't let it - nor can we build it. We can certainly simulate human tantrums, but it is not a good idea to do so.

Then there is the concept of uploading your consciousness. If it were possible, the reality is that you would then know how it feels to be a computer. Sounds like Hell to me. Again, no limbic system.

Scientists need to quit conflating what the Church says with the will of the ultimate reality - which, according to people who have had NDEs - is where free will is. We do not live free will, however. Events are negotiated before your life. How we react to them and treat others as part of the deal is what we can control. Einstein believed in the God of Spinoza. Jesus and Bill W. would agree. 

To know why this is, taking a theology course is needed to be a well rounded scientists, because as I wrote earlier, the rest of the galactic civilization does not care about our technology - they care whether we keep having societal tantrums. Until we stop (and atheists can be as tribal as anyone else), we are stuck on the planet. Again, people who have had NDEs and ask about ETs are told that advanced civilizations have made their peace with the God question. Human consciousness is eternal. We don't need to go to Mars to preserve it.

The Universal Clock

See below. Where do you think we are on the clock?

There's Another Universe. This Is Why.

The Great Attractor is the center of the Universe. An infinite number of universes would require an infinite amount of energy with every movement of every quark. There may be a big bang going out and then a contraction toward the great attractor. The background is simply the edge that reflects in. At some point, the great attractor was the great repeller from which everything expanded from. The multiverse is science fiction - like time travel. 

This is philosophy, not science. It is only provable when the peak of the journey from the great attractor became a journey toward it. When we know when the shift over occurred, we can predict the end. Or we can add the inflation rejected time to the attractor plus the time since the Bing Bang divided by two.

At what point does Sag A swallow the entire galaxy. Assume expansion will eventually be rejected - what comes first, a swallowed Milky Way or reaching the great attractor?

How could deflation be proven? Do an estimate as to whether the Great Attractor has shifted as it eats Laniakea. 

Starship, Falcon and the Moon

Quit landing Starships and stage 2 of Falcon. Instead, leave them in orbit to be converted to living space. Build an orbit Kilo Bay/Star Factory to trick out modules to go to the Moon and Mars - either for orbit or landing at future bases. Include habitat modules so that Martians and Loonies can work and settle. Reactors ends the need to avoid Lunar Night. Most importantly, make the next mission be about seeing if gravity can be simulated with spinning modules - either Falcon stage 2s or inflatables. Test subjects need to be instructed not to gut-it-out. We need honest enough tests to station families in orbit. 

Test a catapult on the Lunar surface for both free return to Earth and to go to Mars. This will allow us to use the Moon as the factory site, rather than having folks hang out in orbit. Use Dragon to move people - it is just the right size and proven to be safe. Nothing less precious need be landed. If organs are to be grown, have the transplant surgery happen in orbit. Even if you die, you get one heck of a ride to get to surgery.

On Starship, put a bank of Merlin engines on board - with steering - rather than reinventing the wheel. This process can go really fast if we want it to - as long as we quit trying to figure out how to land modules that never should be landed.

Starliner's future

The contract specialist who OK'd Starliner development as a fixed price contract should have quoted the Solyndra Affair at DOE as a reason not to try to build this on the cheap. It is time to renegotiate, make Boeing whole and fund whatever is needed to get a second test vehicle, with all problems resolved, launched during Crew 9's stay. Send up two NASA astronauts and the members of Crew 9 where were bumped and switch out Butch and Sunny.

Can we afford this? Absolutely. We cannot afford not to do it. 

I suspect that there is little standing in the way between Kursk and Moscow. A little pressure will mean freedom for the ethnic minority regions and the end of the Russian Federation. Putin's demographic profile is not favorable.

It is time to redraw the boundaries of Asia, north, middle and south. Some parts of Russia can go to China, others to Mongolia - with freedom for the Uyghurs and inner Mongolians as part of the deal. Throw in ending the ban on Chinese partnership in the international space world to sweeten the deal. We can have Astronauts who speak Chinese instead of Russian as a second space language. All things are possible.

Going to the Moon

1. Quit deorbiting tonnage. Never land Starship or Falcon S2. Reuse in space.

2. Put (at first) automated factories in lunar surface to process hydrogen and oxygen and use Starships to bring fuel back to Earth orbit to fuel:

a. Earth orbit operations, including snatching tonnage from LEO to a central orbital staging area and station

b. trans lunar injection tugs (Falcon S2) to move people and materials to lunar orbit, either in their own or to push Starships and planetary space stations.

3. Test feasibility and calibrate artificial gravity systems, ideally with inflatable modules, to prove we can actually travel to Mars or stay in orbit without vertigo.

4. Develop Moon Jumpers to land people and cargo on the surface and travel around the Moon with total reusability.

5. Develop land able modules for moon colonies with landing systems so that colonists can clear boulders from colony space to land them as a unit.

6. Russia will fall apart when Putin dies. Offer civil society help as Oblasts declare independence and take money from defense to space exploration, because every defense worker is a space geek at heart and, given the choice, that is what they would rather do - and where their skills are most useful.

Space Stations Beta Gamma and Delta

Why are we deorbiting anything launched into orbit? If it can be left in space and collected to a single point - Delta for Depot (as I wrote long ago), a Beta station can have workshops (hangers), crew quarters, tools and supplies and fuel. OK, 2 crew quarters, and maybe a nuclear reactor to power it instead of solar panels. 

Gamma is the station to test artificial gravity concepts at various distances from the center and spin velocities. Enough people say it cannot be done to test it ASAP. There is no trip to Mars - or even better - JPL style station around Mars (with families) until we work out artificial gravity.

No Starship should ever return to Earth. Use Dragon for that. No Falcon second stage should ever leave orbit, nor any Crew or Cargo Dragon Trunk. If every Starship becomes a space station component, we have really reached reusability.

NASA FY24 Budget Testimony

 House CSJ Appropriations Subcommittee, April 14, 2023

I write to request that the budget of NASA funding be increased by a factor of 3. One half of the increase would be used to fund the Artemis program. The other half would be spent on two projects: development of a space elevator and prototyping of a space station to test whether gravity generated by centrifugal force is actually practical. If it is not, then the goal of manned space flight cannot proceed past Artemis until some kind of constant boost propulsion system can be devised.

To pay for this funding, decrease  the appropriations for the Defense Department for RDT&E and Procurement. DoD spending cannot easily be converted to just any sort of program. It must fund a similar industrial base or spending for war cannot be reduced. For this reason, responsibility for funding NASA and the National Space Council would be overseen by the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee as part of a larger committee realignment.

How do we put up a space elevator? Inside the atmosphere there should be two stages. One will be firm, with the other retractable. Both would be designed and built by Sierra or a competing vendor who would develop inflatable modules. Modules would be  filled with helium. The lower, retractable stage would be withdrawn in the event of major storm events that may damage the entire system, including the geostationary station. The entire tube structure will be inflatable. 

Whether the retractable portion is in a single segment, or multiple segments, is a design issue. The lower segment will be assisted by helicopter structures for controlled retraction to the intake station on the Pacific Ocean surface. The upper segment would retract to the upper stable portion. Middle portions would be deflated, separated and parachute to the surface in case of emergency. Chutes would have glide functions and both autonomous and controlled functions for guidance toward recovery vessels outside the weather event.

Construction and reattachment would be accomplished with helicopter structures with rotors arrayed similar to current drone technology, with rotation units at each end, with structures at the mating point inward by one segment from mating points. Segments would be longer than those used for orbital stations. 

If necessary, these structures may be permanently in operation to support and control flexible sections and run by solar power generated (and stored) from the surface or by thorium reactors at the space based and surface portions.

Elevator tubes would transport one or more of the following: Steam, with heating at higher altitudes or gaseous hydrogen and oxygen; and vacuum to move small objects (the universe is full of it).

Steam tubes would be heated at altitude where condensation occurs naturally. Where it freezes, steam could be transferred to an automated section where it is allowed to do so and be transferred to to an additional pneumatic tube (which may also begin at the surface), to travel as cylinders of ice. Eventually, a larger pneumatic would be constructed to transport manned capsules and deflated and disassembled Sierra modules for construction. At some point, to the tube stacks will require some form of magnetic shielding to repel micro-meteorites and space junk.

On the way up the elevator, there will be habitats at lunar and Martian gravity for training and acclimation purposes. Initial construction of the geostationary port will be in LEO. At final construction, station will be lifted with the center of gravity constantly at GSO, with the small boosts as modules are built down as others are built up from the surface.

Centrifugal Gravity Test would contain fixed and inflatable elements. A hard module will be required for docking, power production (or integration from solar arrays) and for flywheel to add or break (and capture energy from) spin.

A series of small diameter Inflatable modules would be attached along two sides of one axis. At the end of each structure, there will be four to eight full size modules for crew attached at a single node for either one or two rings. Axial be modules will be inflated one at a time (on each side) until an optimal distance and rotational speed is discovered for each gravitational be level.

Eventually, should a rotational radius and speed prove viable, the follow-on station (or additions to the original station) would include a larger tube for a magnetic or pneumatic elevator, supplemented by smaller tubes for emergency egress. Additional axis would be added so that rings may be added with Lunar, Martian and Earth gravity habitation. Magnetic shielding will be added and air replaced with water, as above. 

The best first mission to Mars and any mission to Venus or a gas or ice giant should be a ringed station. Call it Orbital JPL. Such stations can do measurements and send probes into atmosphere or, for Mars and Luna, do what Gateway is planned to do - but with gravity and shielding. If we cannot make this work, there is no reason to continue with manned exploration. Even unmanned missions would be a waste of time. A large station in Jovian orbit, however, would be worth the effort.

To more easily fund space within the same allocation, transfer NASA and the National Space Council to the Defense Subcommittee so that reductions to defense research and procurement would be offset with increased budget for space exploration.

Ion drive to Mars

Assume a ship with

1.  an attached lander fueled with hydrogen and an oxidizer for descent and ascent and an orbital portion that functions as a space station with hinged modules rather than a torus so that it can spin in orbit but not in transit. 

2. A landing team would also functions as a backup crew for the boost stage, a main engineering crew, a farm crew and command crew and a science crew to analyze samples, build unmanned probes, etc.

3. Food production for the entire mission with hydroponics and lab grown meat

4. Assume Mars trip would be to the moon at each end, docking with an orbital station. Transfer to Earth orbital torus station from there, with lunar landing under power with modules and by catapult for ascent. and fuel modules to the lunar surface also from surface. 

5. Fuel modules would be produced on Moon, along with hydrogen reaction mass for ion engines. Modules would attach to Mars ships. 

6. Empty modules would be landed on Mars and converted to habitats. Some would be used as reaction mass for powered trips to Earth and back. Tanks for module conversion would need heat shielding, parachutes and balloons for landing. Eventually, an elevator would be built.

7.  Oxygen would be produced from regalith. Hydrogen would also be mined and be used as reaction mass.

Research questions:

1. How much hydrogen would be needed for 0.1 G acceleration. 

2. How much is required for 0.2 G for boost phase and 0.3 G gravity for deceleration with opposite speeds for return (assuming optimal orbital mechanics, as well as near optimal)? 

3. What about when hydrogen can be produced from martian soil (no fuel need be sent for return trip).

4. What percentage of ship weight and volume would be loaded fuel tanks, as well as expended empty tanks? 

5. What is ETD for each option?

6. For purposes and maximizing acceleration, how many ion plasma engines would be optimal?