Inflatable Reentry Heat Shield Survives Hypersonic Test

IRVE-3, a cone of uninflated rings covered by a thermal blanket of layers of heat-resistant materials, launched from a three-stage Black Brant rocket for its suborbital flight. About six minutes into the flight the 680lb inflatable aeroshell, or heat shield, and its payload separated from the launch vehicle’s 22in-diameter nose cone about 280 miles over the Atlantic Ocean.

An inflation system pumped nitrogen into the IRVE-3 aeroshell until it expanded to almost 10ft in diameter. Then the aeroshell fell at hypersonic speeds through Earth’s atmosphere.

Engineers in the Wallops control room watched as four on-board cameras confirmed the inflatable shield held its shape despite the force and high heat of re-entry. Onboard instruments provided temperature and pressure data, and researchers will study that information to help develop future inflatable heat shield designs.

After its flight, IRVE-3 fell into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North Carolina. From launch to splashdown, the flight lasted about 20 minutes. _Engineer

An inflatable heat shield might lend more versatility to reentry vehicle design. This type of research may also provide valuable data to hypersonic flight engineers and designers.

More from Universe Today:

A prototype for a large inflatable heat shield that could one day be used for landing large payloads on Mars was tested successfully on July 23, 2012, surviving a hypersonic speeds through Earth’s atmosphere. The Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) traveled at speeds up to 12,231 km/h (7,600 mph) after launching on a sounding rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia.

“We had a really great flight today,” said James Reuther, deputy director of NASA’s Space Technology Program, after the test flight. “Initial indications are we got good data. Everything performed as well, or better, than expected.

IRVE-3 is a cone of uninflated high-tech rings covered by a thermal blanket of layers of heat resistant materials. NASA said the purpose of the IRVE-3 test was to show that a space capsule can use an inflatable outer shell to slow and protect itself as it enters an atmosphere at hypersonic speed during planetary entry and descent, or as it returns to Earth with cargo from the International Space Station. A larger version has been proposed for landing larger payloads on Mars, such as future human missions.

Watch the video from the flight below. _Universe Today

More from Popsci

Mastering the perils of hypersonic atmospheric flight and reentry is one of the large challenges confronting the coming human expansion into space. Up until now, it has been difficult to find the optimal outer skin for re-usable hypersonic and reentry craft. But given the potential rewards of developing outer space resources and infrastructure, such obstacles are not likely to hold back aerospace engineers for long.

Inflatable Death Star? Space Mirrors Beaming Down from Above

Next Big Future

Inflatable Reflector Development at L’Gaarde. Inflatable antenna design matures in the form of this new 7 meter rigidifiable inflatable antenna structure. The torus and struts on this spectacular configuration rigidify shortly after deployment. The resulting reflector is thermally stable, stiff, and well damped, with a low error for high gain space applications. The entire reflector assembly stows in the small round structure visible above the simulated hexagonal spacecraft. It inflates and rigidifies to the configuration seen. _NBF

Brian Wang discusses proposals for orbiting large arrays of orbiting mirrors in a polar sun synchronous orbit, 1000 km above Earth. The idea as stated in the document embedded below, is to extend the time of insolation for particular land areas, which could convert the extra sunlight into electricity or heat.

Such a scheme could also be used to extend the growing season for crops, or to provide glacier-free living space in the event of an unforeseen ice age ;-).

As mentioned here previously, such solar-beaming arrays could also be used to damage crops, or to concentrate light and heat in damaging and deadly ways. Think of them as inflatable death stars, on the cheap. What evil galactic emperor could possibly complain about the cost of these bargain basement death stars?

All the more reason why space should be open to all, rather than limited to just a few powerful national governments. The greater variety of nationalities and peoples in space, the less chance that any would be space dictator could get away with such death star shenanigans.

Must We Kill All Tort Lawyers Before We Can Go Into Space?

ImageSource
Over at NextBigFuture, Brian Wang looks at the supply and demand economics of space colonisation. Brian points to a more extensive posting by Paul Gilster at Centauri Dreams, "The Economics of Space Infrastructure." Brian and Paul are correctly looking at the economic costs and benefits of space infrastructure and space colonies. But the topic goes far beyond mere economics.

Science Fiction author Charles Stross downplays arguments in favour of space colonies as "quasi-religious." Physicist Stephen Hawking wishes for humans to colonise Mars and Luna, as a way to preserve the human race and Terrestrial life, should Earth be destroyed by comets, asteroids, geologic catatrophe or other forms of massive upheaval. Physicist Freeman Dyson has thought along similar lines since the mid-1960s. The idea of "not having all of one's eggs in a single basket" appeals to the long term thinker who wishes the human enterprise to be ultimately successful.

Humans appear to possess an "exploratory instinct," a natural urge to explore. From the very beginning, humans have been willing to risk what they have, in order to find something more. The urge for outer space is another manifestation of this instinct.

At times it may seem that we have lost this exploratory urge, but always it returns, reshaped by current events. Why is it that we strive to understand our place in the heavens and seek other intelligences out there? _Planetary

Exploration is risky. Explorers often die. In an outward-looking, exploratory society, the acceptance of risk is so commonplace as to become second nature. Such a society will spawn many explorers, and many pioneers who are willing to follow close behind the explorer to create a more settled life in the new, risk-filled territories.

Modern affluent societies become more risk-averse, more fixed on security over time. This security-fixation often approaches pathological levels, depending upon whether it becomes accepted and codified within legal, cultural, educational, and legislative institutions.

In modern western nations -- particularly the US -- risk aversion in the form of tort is often costing societies their birthright and their future.

Economists have long understood that America's tort system acts as a serious drag on our nation's economy. Although many excellent studies have been conducted, no single work has fully captured the true total costs, both static and dynamic, of excessive litigation.

The good news: We now have some reliable figures. The bad news: The costs are far higher than anyone imagined.

Based on our estimates, and applying the best available scholarly research, we believe America's tort system imposes a total cost on the U.S. economy of $865 billion per year. This constitutes an annual "tort tax" of $9,827 on a family of four.

...litigation doesn't just transfer wealth, it also changes behavior, and often in economically unproductive ways. Any true estimate of the costs of America's tort system must also include these dynamic costs of litigation -- the impact on research and development spending, the costs of defensive medicine and the related rise in health-care spending and reduced access to health care, and the loss of output from deaths due to excess liability. _WSJ

Most recent attention to tort reform in the US has focused upon medical tort. But the economic destruction of out-of-control US tort law is felt in every part of society, industry, and the economy. In a society ruled by tyranny of tort, all risk is punished pro-actively. In other words, most great ventures are never even attempted, due to the tight noose of tort -- and other effects of excess government -- around the necks of entire societies. As of 2006, costs of tort in the US had been growing at an average rate of almost 10% annually PDF.

In order to advance, humans must take risks. The elimination of risk from society is also the elimination of growth and advancement. Eliminating risk means inevitable stagnation and decline. It is the great human dieoff by backdoor means, albeit in slow motion form -- at first. Decline has a way of accelerating, however, once it passes a certain point.

Massive -- and still growing -- bureaucracies of government shut in most possibilities of escape from this inbuilt decline. When humans are cut off from expressing their natural instincts, they tend to rebel if they can. Eventually, they grow passive, fatalistic.

It appears as if western educational, news media, and entertainment systems are dedicated to the suppression of the exploratory urge in humans. This society-wide trap appears to be closing more tightly every year, with every pseudo-cause and crusade such as carbon hysteria, or resource scarcity doom.

How can we escape this suffocating atmosphere of security-fixation and excessive risk-aversion? There are few ways to escape other than to emigrate to a less regulated nation, or to build a seastead. Every so often a few people try to start a new country, where they can set their own rules so as to allow greater personal freedoms. Of course, new countries in space -- on the moon, Mars, in the asteroid belt, and beyond -- would represent a big step up from previous efforts.

But people will die in the attempt to establish a permanent human presence and economy in space. That is inevitable. People die in hazardous environments on Earth every day, and outer space is far more hazardous than almost anywhere on Earth. Whenever there is a chance of people dying, lawyers flock like flies on excrement.

We can see in the inability of advanced societies to develop a larger, safer, cleaner nuclear power industry, how tort lawyers combined with government regulators drive up costs to the point of abandonment of multi-billion dollar enterprises and loss of future plans and possibilities.

Established powers aim to remain established powers. That is what the vast inbred and corrupt system of government and law has become in the west. Free humans are hemmed in and restricted. Economies stagnate and the human spirit dies a little with every new encroachment by government and its army of allied extortionists.

People do emigrate to Costa Rica and other small countries where there may be less intrusive regulation and more freedom of activity in many ways. Other people "go Galt" and drop out, go off the grid as it were. Expect to see more of that unless something drastic occurs to reverse the creeping strangulation of the government-legal- quasi organised crime complex.

Can SpaceX and other private space companies provide an escape from the ongoing choking of human freedom in the developed world? Even if improvements in technology allowed the costs of space launch were to come down enough to make travel to the moon economical for middle class incomes, the inbred risk-aversion of modern societies places a limit on how far the movement could progress -- without massive changes in western government and legal systems.

Must we kill all tort lawyers and their fellows in crime, before the human instinct to explore and pioneer can find an outlet in space?

Solar System Battling Hot 6000 C Cosmic Cloud

No wonder the solar system is warming! It is being wrapped in a blanket of 6000 degree Celsius interstellar gas cloud. Talk about greenhouse gas!

Astronomers call the cloud we’re running into now the Local Interstellar Cloud or “Local Fluff” for short. It’s about 30 light years wide and contains a wispy mixture of hydrogen and helium atoms at a temperature of 6000 C. The existential mystery of the Fluff has to do with its surroundings. About 10 million years ago, a cluster of supernovas exploded nearby, creating a giant bubble of million-degree gas. The Fluff is completely surrounded by this high-pressure supernova exhaust and should be crushed or dispersed by it.

“The observed temperature and density of the local cloud do not provide enough pressure to resist the ‘crushing action’ of the hot gas around it,” says Opher.

So how does the Fluff survive? The Voyagers have found an answer.

“Voyager data show that the Fluff is much more strongly magnetized than anyone had previously suspected—between 4 and 5 microgauss*,” says Opher. “This magnetic field can provide the extra pressure required to resist destruction.” _WUWT

What does this collision between the solar system and the interstellar cloud mean for Earth's climate? No one really knows, but there has been speculation:

"The tilted field probably is a result from turbulence in the interstellar medium outside our solar system or results from collisions of clouds in the solar system neighborhood," Opher says. In other words, gas clouds far from our solar system are smacking together in unexpected ways, mixing up the galactic magnetic fields that in turn funnels cosmic rays into the heliosphere. _USAToday

With more cosmic rays funneled into the solar system, perhaps Earth will see more of the Svensmark cosmic ray effect -- more clouds, cooler climate. On the other hand, wrapping your solar system with 6000 C gas clouds might eventually create a systemic warming. Remember: at the same time the Earth has been warming from the Little Ice Age (1750 to the present), Mars has warmed simultaneously. That suggests a systemic effect of some sort. Probably solar variability, but who is to say that the planets cannot be affected by forces from interstellar space?

One more thing: the Earth's north magnetic pole is shifting toward Russia at a rate of 37 miles per year. The shift may be a prelude to the "flipping of the Earth's magnetic poles." Should that happen, the transitionary period will be full of hazard for all Earth life -- exposed to high levels of extra-terrestrial radiation. Of course, it may also be a prelude to a long term collapse of the magnetic field. That would be something to really cry about.

Billions for Global Warming--But Not One Cent for the Defense of Earth From Space

The US Congress, such as it is, directs the space agency NASA as to its goals and missions. The Congress in its perverse incompetence has decided that "global warming" represents a larger threat to the nation and the world than threats from outer space--falling rocks.

In 1980, only 86 near-Earth asteroids and comets were known to exist. By 1990, the figure had risen to 170; by 2000, it was 921; as of this writing, it is 5,388. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, part of NASA, keeps a running tally at www.neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats. Ten years ago, 244 near-Earth space rocks one kilometer across or more—the size that would cause global calamity—were known to exist; now 741 are. Of the recently discovered nearby space objects, NASA has classified 186 as “impact risks” (details about these rocks are at www.neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk ).
And because most space - rock searches to date have been low-budget affairs, conducted with equipment designed to look deep into the heavens, not at nearby space, the actual number of impact risks is undoubtedly much higher. Extrapolating from recent discoveries, NASA estimates that there are perhaps 20,000 potentially hazardous asteroids and comets in the general vicinity of Earth.

...A team of researchers led by Richard Firestone, of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in California, recently announced the discovery of evidence that one or two huge space rocks, each perhaps several kilometers across, exploded high above Canada 12,900 years ago. The detonation, they believe, caused widespread fires and dust clouds, and disrupted climate patterns so severely that it triggered a prolonged period of global cooling. Mammoths and other species might have been killed either by the impact itself or by starvation after their food supply was disrupted.

...just a century ago, in 1908, a huge explosion occurred above Tunguska, Siberia. The cause was not a malfunctioning alien star-cruiser but a small asteroid or comet that detonated as it approached the ground. The blast had hundreds of times the force of the Hiroshima bomb and devastated an area of several hundred square miles. Had the explosion occurred above London or Paris, the city would no longer exist. Mark Boslough, a researcher at the Sandia National Laboratory, in New Mexico, recently concluded that the Tunguska object was surprisingly small, perhaps only 30 meters across. Right now, astronomers are nervously tracking 99942 Apophis, an asteroid with a slight chance of striking Earth in April 2036. Apophis is also small by asteroid standards, perhaps 300 meters across, but it could hit with about 60,000 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb—enough to destroy an area the size of France. In other words, small asteroids may be more dangerous than we used to think—and may do considerable damage even if they don’t reach Earth’s surface.

...Comets, asteroids, and the little meteors that form pleasant shooting stars approach Earth at great speeds—at least 25,000 miles per hour. As they enter the atmosphere they heat up, from friction, and compress, because they decelerate rapidly. Many space rocks explode under this stress, especially small ones; large objects are more likely to reach Earth’s surface. The angle at which objects enter the atmosphere also matters: an asteroid or comet approaching straight down has a better chance of hitting the surface than one entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle, as the latter would have to plow through more air, heating up and compressing as it descended. The object or objects that may have detonated above Canada 12,900 years ago would probably have approached at a shallow angle....This winter, I asked William Ailor, an asteroid specialist at The Aerospace Corporation, a think tank for the Air Force, what he thought the risk was. Ailor’s answer: a one-in-10 chance per century of a dangerous space-object strike.

...when it comes to killer comets, you’ll just have to lose sleep over the possibility of their approach; there are no proposals for what to do about them. Comets are easy to see when they are near the sun and glowing but are difficult to detect at other times. Many have “eccentric” orbits, spending centuries at tremendous distances from the sun, then falling toward the inner solar system, then slingshotting away again. If you were to add comets to one of those classroom models of the solar system, many would need to come from other floors of the building, or from another school district, in order to be to scale. Advanced telescopes will probably do a good job of detecting most asteroids that pass near Earth, but an unknown comet suddenly headed our way would be a nasty surprise. And because many comets change course when the sun heats their sides and causes their frozen gases to expand, deflecting or destroying them poses technical problems to which there are no ready solutions. The logical first step, then, seems to be to determine how to prevent an asteroid from striking Earth and hope that some future advance, perhaps one building on the asteroid work, proves useful against comets....Congress...ought to look more sensibly at space priorities.

Because it controls federal funding, Congress holds the trump cards. In 2005, [Congress] approved the moon-base idea, seemingly just as as budgetary log-rolling to maintain spending in the congressional districts favored under NASA’s current budget hierarchy. The House and Senate ought to demand that the space program have as its first priority returning benefits to taxpayers. __Atlantic__via_Kurzweilai.net

Bonus: Check out this graphic video portraying the dangerous world of space rock.
The Congress is preparing to throw the US economy (and by extension the global economy) into a tailspin over global warming, based upon less evidence than would be necessary to convince most intelligent people to drive to the corner market. Yet when it comes to potentially apocalyptic hazards such as extinction-event asteroid and comet falls, Congress has an inadequate scope and vision to protect the US. What about the UN? Puhlease! The UN is all about stashing away untraceable cash in numbered Swiss bank accounts. Not being helpful or useful.

Is the risk of a serious space rock incident as high as 1 in 10, as stated above? There are too many assumptions to give a clear estimate. What should be obvious to anyone with a brain who is paying attention, however, is that the threat from space rocks is several orders of magnitude higher than the threat from anthropogenic greenhouse warming.

Americans, when you go to the voting booth in November, remember that it is you who is partially to blame for the unaccountability of your government. Because you never held your Senators and Congressional members to account. You never asked the hard questions, nor insisted that the weasels really answer the questions. You passively believe that you pay taxes so that the government can take care of the country. That is your first mistake. The rest of the list is too long to publish here.

Congress is ready to sell the US economy down the river for a little "international acceptance". Congress is an ass. But then you knew that already.

Meanwhile, Oynklent Green is preparing to test its pilot plant, at a secret, undisclosed location that has been hardened against asteroid impact.

The Demise of Civilisation: Inevitable? Eventually

Image Source

Every civilisation meets its end eventually. The recent article in New Scientist "Why the Demise of Civilisation May be Inevitable" was meant to answer the question in a more immediate timeframe than "eventually."

Doomsday scenarios typically feature a knockout blow: a massive asteroid, all-out nuclear war or a catastrophic pandemic (see "The end of civilisation"). Yet there is another chilling possibility: what if the very nature of civilisation means that ours, like all the others, is destined to collapse sooner or later?

A few researchers have been making such claims for years. Disturbingly, recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that they are right. It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually, it reaches a point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything crashing down.

Some say we have already reached this point, and that it is time to start thinking about how we might manage collapse. Others insist it is not yet too late, and that we can - we must - act now to keep disaster at bay. ___NewScientist

Well, every civilisation that has had its day, has also had its night--its end. Sumeria, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Inca, Maya, Aztec, and so on. What might be the Achilles' heel for our civilisation? And no, the answer is not Peak Oil, Global Warming, Armageddon, or any of the other religious and quasi-religious dime a dozen doomsdays that are floating around. The answer is much more interesting--and more real.

To keep growing, societies must keep solving problems as they arise. Yet each problem solved means more complexity. Success generates a larger population, more kinds of specialists, more resources to manage, more information to juggle - and, ultimately, less bang for your buck.

Eventually, says Tainter, the point is reached when all the energy and resources available to a society are required just to maintain its existing level of complexity. Then when the climate changes or barbarians invade, overstretched institutions break down and civil order collapses. What emerges is a less complex society, which is organised on a smaller scale or has been taken over by another group.

Tainter sees diminishing returns as the underlying reason for the collapse of all ancient civilisations, from the early Chinese dynasties to the Greek city state of Mycenae. These civilisations relied on the solar energy that could be harvested from food, fodder and wood, and from wind. When this had been stretched to its limit, things fell apart. ___NS

So modern western civilisation has gotten bigger in every way than any previous civilisation, and more complex. We have computers and nuclear reactors and skies full of people at 30,000 feet traveling above 500 miles per hour. We furnish our homes and refrigerators with products from every part of the globe. We have one manned space station, with plans for more--and more ambitious plans to go to Mars and beyond.

Have we bitten off more than our monkey brains can chew?

"To run a hierarchy, managers cannot be less complex than the system they are managing," Bar-Yam says. As complexity increases, societies add ever more layers of management but, ultimately in a hierarchy, one individual has to try and get their head around the whole thing, and this starts to become impossible. At that point, hierarchies give way to networks in which decision-making is distributed. We are at this point.

This shift to decentralised networks has led to a widespread belief that modern society is more resilient than the old hierarchical systems. "I don't foresee a collapse in society because of increased complexity," says futurologist and industry consultant Ray Hammond. "Our strength is in our highly distributed decision making." This, he says, makes modern western societies more resilient than those like the old Soviet Union, in which decision making was centralised. ___NS

So we are a networked civilisation, and that makes us more resilient? Some "experts" disagree. They say that when interconnection reaches a certain level--particularly in financial networks--that a loss of one part can bring everything down.

Scientists in other fields are also warning that complex systems are prone to collapse. Similar ideas have emerged from the study of natural cycles in ecosystems, based on the work of ecologist Buzz Holling, now at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Some ecosystems become steadily more complex over time: as a patch of new forest grows and matures, specialist species may replace more generalist species, biomass builds up and the trees, beetles and bacteria form an increasingly rigid and ever more tightly coupled system.

"It becomes an extremely efficient system for remaining constant in the face of the normal range of conditions," says Homer-Dixon. But unusual conditions - an insect outbreak, fire or drought - can trigger dramatic changes as the impact cascades through the system. The end result may be the collapse of the old ecosystem and its replacement by a newer, simpler one.

Globalisation is resulting in the same tight coupling and fine-tuning of our systems to a narrow range of conditions, he says. Redundancy is being systematically eliminated as companies maximise profits. Some products are produced by only one factory worldwide. Financially, it makes sense, as mass production maximises efficiency. Unfortunately, it also minimises resilience. "We need to be more selective about increasing the connectivity and speed of our critical systems," says Homer-Dixon. "Sometimes the costs outweigh the benefits."

Tainter is not convinced that even new technology will save civilisation in the long run. "I sometimes think of this as a 'faith-based' approach to the future," he says. Even a society reinvigorated by cheap new energy sources will eventually face the problem of diminishing returns once more. Innovation itself might be subject to diminishing returns, or perhaps absolute limits.

Studies of the way cities grow by Luis Bettencourt of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, support this idea. His team's work suggests that an ever-faster rate of innovation is required to keep cities growing and prevent stagnation or collapse, and in the long run this cannot be sustainable.

The stakes are high. Historically, collapse always led to a fall in population. "Today's population levels depend on fossil fuels and industrial agriculture," says Tainter. "Take those away and there would be a reduction in the Earth's population that is too gruesome to think about."

If industrialised civilisation does fall, the urban masses - half the world's population - will be most vulnerable. Much of our hard-won knowledge could be lost, too. "The people with the least to lose are subsistence farmers," Bar-Yam observes, and for some who survive, conditions might actually improve. Perhaps the meek really will inherit the Earth.

Complexity of systems is a fairly young field of study. Most of the people quoted in the article do not actually know what they are talking about, not really. They are speaking in abstract terms about theoretical problems that may or may not occur. Academics and think tank scholars--like journalists and politicians--are of limited use in dealing with real world problems. If they were competent and effective in the real world, most of them would probably be doing something else. Still, a wise person looks for ideas in a wide array of places.

It is fairly obvious that our complex electronic global financial systems are vulnerable to disruption. In fact, in the next large scale war, one of the first casualties of large nations will be their financial and communications networks. Satellites will be lost, landlines and seafloor cables will be cut, and computer centers will be sabotaged. Yes, there are backups and redundant systems and databases. But access will be a problem for large numbers. For monkey-brained humans, large scale panic sets in fairly easily.

An abrupt cutoff of fuel for ground, rail, and air transportation could likewise lead to large scale hardship and civil disturbances. A loss of electrical power would leave tens or hundreds of millions in complete turmoil. Most cities have only a few days worth of food inside their borders. Rather than confronting these important vulnerabilities, most leaders tend to obscure them and steer public discussion away to other topics.

It was fairly easy for two handfuls of young religious fanatics to shut down the North American air system for several days in September of 2001. It would be just as easy today.

Modern laboratory tools for biology and chemistry provide many ways to turn an open, trusting society into a shut-down, quivering, fearful society. Soon nanotechnological tools will make even more devastatingly deadly--and invisible--weapons readily available. It is easy to send modern western media-centered societies into paralytic states of fear.

We do not need to think about what Apophis may do in 2036 to understand that our societies are vulnerable. But our civilisation? Not so much. We may have to give up some of our openness in the public sphere for a while. We may have to put up with far more intrusive security measures, temporarily, than the worst schemes ever considered by Bush and Cheney. But the civilisation would survive.

The greatest threat to our civilisation is also the greatest promise--the possibility that something better will be devised. That better civilisation will have its vulnerabilities, yes. But the participants in the next level should have some important upgrades to their monkey-brains which will allow them to consider more contingencies, and devise better ways to deal with them.

Even our best thinkers can be quite slipshod at times. We have computers to help us with that, but some problems of pompous overreach cannot be compensated or corrected by computers. We can use human-level AI, certainly. But we need to become smarter, more than our machines. If we put our fate trustingly into the hands of machines that we can never understand, have we not just traded up to an even more dangerous vulnerability?

Full ArticleQuoted Above

Your Assignment: Devise a Plan to Save As Many Humans as Possible In the Event This Should Happen

Yes, the narration is in Japanese. You say you cannot understand Japanese? Just turn down the volume, and play your favourite "end of the world music" in the background, instead.

Then come up with a plan using today's technology, for saving at least 100,000 humans from the apocalypse.

As a bonus, go here to find an interesting NOVA clip about Apophis--the asteroid due to strike Earth in the year 2036.

The Odds of Asteroid 2004 QQ47 Hitting Earth in 2014 Are One in 909,000

If an asteroid 460 feet in diameter hit Earth, it would produce problems on a regional level, according to NASA. An asteroid 1,000 feet in diameter could harm countries, and one 3,280 feet in diameter -- or one kilometer -- could produce global problems.

If an asteroid that is 32,808 feet in diameter -- or 10 kilometers -- hit Earth, it could cause life forms to become extinct, similar to the asteroid that many scientists believe caused dinosaurs to become extinct.

Source

Asteroid 2004 MN4 has a higher likelihood of striking the Earth in 2029--greater than 1%. Asteroid MN4 has achieved a threat level of 2 out of 10 on the Torino scale.

An asteroid strike is a real problem, not an ideological hobgoblin like CAGW. The consequences of an asteroid strike would not be subject to revisionist history, post-modernist deconstructualism, or simple human denial.

At the present time, there are no good or available means to divert a large, civilisation-ending asteroid or comet from its course. And to be honest, we will probably have insufficient time to prepare for it, if we wait until we have solid warning.

NASA maintains a list of near-earth objects, for those who enjoy keeping track of such things. And amateur and professional astronomers around the world are watching the night sky carefully for new and previously undiscovered space objects heading our way.

Throughout the world, asteroids have caused about 330 known craters on Earth, but there are probably many more that people haven't discovered yet or are hidden under the oceans, Ryan said.

"It's truly a problem," she said. "We have to worry about these things because we don't know. We have to prepare for any outcome."

....Possibilities for deflecting an asteroid include using a large mirror to focus solar energy on an asteroid and boiling off material, or positioning a spacecraft near an asteroid and using a laser to boil off material, according to the report.

The government could also use a spacecraft to attach mining material to an asteroid and eject material from the asteroid at a high velocity, the report says, or use a spacecraft to literally push it out of the Earth's path.

To dismantle an asteroid, NASA says using a nuclear-armed missile would be more effective than a conventional explosive. The study team looked at conventional explosives but found they would be ineffective in most situations.

The best way to minimise the threat of an asteroid impact is to already have a permanent large-scale space infrastructure in place, before any large asteroids or comets enter final approach to earth impact. If we wait until we are certain a large object will hit us, it will probably be too late.

Odds for QQ47 impact are from Daily Astronomy.

Graphic image is from Saturation.org

Dodging Doomsday--Taking Out Insurance on the Unthinkable

Civilisation is a delicate thing. It could end in many ways. If we humans were prudent, we would take certain precautions.

The folks at the Lifeboat Foundation feel the same way. They are dedicated to the creation of Ark I, a self-sustaining space colony for the preservation of technological civilisation.

Ark I will be initially placed in orbit around the Earth at a height of 400 kilometers (248 miles) to make it easier to engage in trade and tourists from Earth. Both it and the other Arks will be moved further away from the Earth as the project progresses.

Why should we live in orbit rather than on a planet or moon? Because orbit is far superior to the Moon and Mars for colonization, and other planets and moons are too hot, too far away, and/or have no solid surface.

Source.

Another such group is ARC--Alliance to Rescue Civilization. Here is part of ARC's mission statement:

ARC Mission:

The mission of the Alliance to Rescue Civilization (ARC) is to protect the human species and its civilization from destruction that could result from a global catastrophic event, including nuclear war, acts of terrorism, plague and asteroid collisions. To fulfill its mission, ARC is dedicated to creating continuously staffed facilities on the Moon and other locations away from Earth. These facilities will preserve backups of scientific and cultural achievements, and of the species important to our civilization. In the event of a global catastrophe, the ARC facilities will be prepared to reintroduce lost technology, art, history, crops, livestock and, if necessary, even human beings to the Earth.

ARC Vision

The Alliance to Rescue Civilization is a very long-term international project. It seeks to copy and continuously update the essence of Earth in its many forms for safekeeping at a manned site off the planet (the Moon or a huge station are the leading candidates.) ARC would in effect comprehensively back up Earth's collective hard drive for use in rescuing and rebuilding the planet in the event of a catastrophic disaster, natural or man-made. It would in no sense be a time capsule, but would rather be an updated record of Earth's multiple life forms, flora and fauna, and its broad spectrum of arts and sciences, history, technology and all else that constitutes the planet's collective nature and culture.

In the event of a major catastrophe, for example worldwide plague, comet impact, nuclear war or social collapse, the staff of ARC will function in a rescue capacity rather than as librarians. They will be prepared to help the survivors reestablish a functioning technological society, or in the worst instance, to repopulate the Earth themselves, and re-introduce the additionally needed biological species here. The primary mission of ARC will be to secure our tenancy of this planet, although it is fully compatible with plans to extend human settlement beyond the Earth-Moon system. ARC will provide our manned space program with the central purpose which it has so sorely lacked, linking it firmly to human survival on our home planet and elsewhere. The ARC facility will stand as a visible and inspiring symbol of our aspirations, one which can overcome the negative connotations associated with disaster relief. With ARC in place, of course, other scientific and commercial uses of space will be facilitated. ARC can serve as an engine that pulls many freight cars.

Source.

In 1975, Oscar Falconi wrote an essay on the need for humans to colonize space. He discusses several ways in which humans might destroy themselves and their ability to survive on earth. Arthur C. Clarke reached the same conclusions as Falconi in his 1951 book, The Exploration of Space. More recently, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking wrote: "I don't think the human race will survive . . unless we spread into space."

It is wise for humans to take precautions against likely disasters. Distributing human knowledge databases in different regions of space might be helpful one day.

Many more links on this and similar topics at Sylvia Engdahl's site.

Global Collapsism: Threats to Survival--How Do They Rank?

Everyone has an "end of the world" scenario. All the world's religions have one. There is more than a little "religious residue" in many of the secular end of the world scenarios floating around. Seriously, how would you rank the threats? Look at some different ideological perspectives and try to understand what motivates their concerns.

Captain Dave's Survival Center, a right of center survival website, provides this ranking:

1. Terrorism at home and abroad.
2. Middle east conflict going out of control.
3. Nuclear Proliferation
4. Economic disruption from resource shortages [oil, metals, etc].
5. Contagious diseases.
6. Others [regional threats]

Captain Dave gives an overall risk rating for TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) as 63, on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being no threat and 100 being absolute teotwawki.

Nick Bostrom, guru of transhumanism, provides an interesting assessment of existential risks that overlaps somewhat with the above list, with interesting differences. The rankings provided below are my interpretation of Nick's rankings. Read the article for a more nuanced presentation.

1. Deliberate misuse of nanotechnology.
2. Nuclear holocaust.
3. Shutdown of simulation [a joke]
4. Superintelligence gone amuk.
5. Genetically engineered super-plague
6. Nanotech accident [gray goo]
7. Unforeseen
8. Emergent plague of natural origin
9. Comet or asteroid impact
10. Runaway global warming
11. Resource depletion or eco-doom
    
12. World government tyranny [muslim caliphate etc]
13. Dysgenics

There is much more at the source.


Leftist academic Dylan Evans published an article in the Guardian Unlimited, titled "A Risk of Total Collapse." His three listed risks were these:

1. Climate Change
2. Resource Depletion
3. Population Imbalance

Anarchist Greens go even further, not only recommending that adherents prepare for the collapse, but actually encouraging them to help bring about the collapse itself. Here is a list from one such website.

1. End of Cheap Energy [peak oil] with Infrastructure Failure
   
2. Decline of Industrial Agriculture with Famines
   
3. Currency Collapse and Economic Depression
4. Disease Epidemics
5. Climate Change with extreme unpredictable weather
   

This is just a quick assortment of various views of end of the world catastrophes. Many religions [Islam, Christianity etc] have legends of messianic visitations in the end of time, bringing about teotwawki. The Economist provides A Brief History of the end of the world that may bring a smile.

Your world is certain to end. Certainly the devout christians who prepared for the many end of the world predictions of the messiah back in the 19th century, are all dead. Their worlds did end, for them. So it will be for you--something will end your world eventually. We at Al Fin blog will leave it to you to decide what precautions to take.