Food, drinking water and shelter are three essentials of human life. More than the other two, limitations in food production threaten well-being and create suffering. After all, more shelter can always be built. As for drinkable water, it can be challenging to distribute to all who need it, but the actual amount is sufficient to slake the thirst of everyone on earth many times over. The limited capacity of the Earth to produce food, more than anything else, limits human population. More importantly, limitations in food production conspire with the Malthusian tendency of human population to expand to the limits imposed by available resources, threatening to maintain much of humanity in a borderline state of chronic food insecurity. A result is inability of humanity to efficiently develop its intellectual, artistic, athletic, and social potential due to inability to efficiently develop those potentials among many of its members, because they are preoccupied with just feeding themselves and their families. If only food security could be dramatically improved!

Agricultural productivity through mechanization. In wealthy and technologically advanced countries like the US, UK and Australia, agricultural employment is in a long-term decline. In the UK agricultural employment has declined from 700 thousand in 1984 to just under 550 thousand in 2004; in the US the percentage of the labor force devoted to agriculture went from 33% in 1900 to 2% in 2000; in Australia the percentage decreased from 6.3% in 1986 to 4% in 2004. This is certainly not causing food production to become inadequate - obesity is going up in all three countries. Thus, food production per person-hour of agricultural labor has been increasing. This is a happy trend so we should pursue ways to continue it. Unfortunately, at least in the developed world the potential for improvement is somewhat limited simply because food production is so labor-efficient already. If only 2% of the workforce does agriculture, doubling labor productivity would make little difference in the scheme of things.

We need to look at other methods besides the expensive forms of mechanization that have been boosting agricultural productivity so effectively in developed countries. That mechanization has reached an impressive acme. Many center pivot irrigation systems can water large circular patches of land a mile in diameter. You can often see them from airplane windows when flying across the US. Prices of these machines in dollars will set you back 6 digits. That might sound like a bargain for a precision machine half a mile long, but it means they won’t be purchased to increase farming productivity in third-world countries any time soon. The situation is analogous for large farm harvesting combines - which are essentially grain processing factories on wheels, often with GPS tracking and other high tech components.

Secret of the bison?  The plains bison, a subspecies of American bison, formerly ranged the great prairies of North America. Feeding on naturally growing vegetation, bison did not domesticate their food plants nor did they ever employ farming techniques. They mostly just wandered around eating. Sometimes they fled from hunters. How could clueless beasts enjoy such a plentiful food supply? It turns out that natural ecosystems (prairies, rain forests, etc., etc.) are highly productive, ecological productivity being the quantity produced per unit of time of plant and animal tissue. In fact, the greater the diversity of species in an ecosystem, the more productive it tends to be. One road to dramatically higher agricultural productivity, therefore, is to increased species diversity. Yet modern agriculture focuses on monoculture, or cultivation of a single species in a field. Unfortunately, unlike the bison, people can’t eat random plants growing in a prairie. Furthermore, people must work in the fields because domesticated plants can’t compete with wild plants; they need human labor to grow and thrive.

Thus one may conclude that natural ecosystems can have both higher ecological productivity than farmed monocultures, and higher labor productivity (because they produce while left alone). To the extent that farm productivity is due to fertilizer and irrigation, of course undomesticated habitat can be fertilized and irrigated too. If only humans found enough wild plant tissue edible, there would be more food, and less labor would be required to produce it. It would be good for the environment, too. Less (as in no) pesticides would be needed. Natural habitat would be less disrupted, since it could be used sustainably rather than cut down and destroyed. If only…. Yes, one can wish for it,but as the old saying goes, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”

Human consumption of wild plant species would indeed be a good thing. And since it potentially would supply more food per acre than farming, it would continue the long-standing trend of increasing food productivity typified by the “green revolution” of the latter half of the 20th century - so momentum is in its favor. We merely need to figure out how to do it. The big problem is solving the edibility issue. All the ecological productivity in the world won’t get the dinner table set, currently. An ideal solution is the “analog food mill” envisioned by Macfarlane. You stuff any plant or animal material into the input hopper and it extrudes a “square strip of heavy paste” which can be flavored like chicken (of course), but also fruit or cheese - not to mention govond and oegel, whatever they are. This while “chuffing” out quantities of dry dust from the waste port. As an added benefit it can serve as a small bomb by throwing it against a rock or hard wall, if you’re not planning on getting hungry later.

What we can do

To get used to trying new and tasty comestibles, perhaps the easiest thing an individual can do - and the most likely to leave a good taste in your mouth, pun intended - is wander the aisles of the nearest asian food store. They usually have canned exotic fruits that may be unfamiliar (think breadfruit, lychee, etc.) but, like regular canned fruit, are pretty good. For society as a whole, technology is the best hope for achieving the ecologically favorable continuation of the agricultural green revolution noted above.

From recipes to genetic engineering to robots. First of all, recipes need to be made easily available that use edible wild plants. (Note: do not try consuming random plants without knowing what you are doing - many are poisonous.) Researchers can start inventing “analog food mills” that might not work on all plants at first, but could grind up, flavor, and process some plants, say non-poisonous ones, into a tasty and nutritious form. Another path is genetic engineering, applied to make wild plant species more edible while maintaining or improving their ability to compete ecologically. This would require considerable research as well as updates to the current US regime for certifying (”deregulating”) transgenic plants. The current certification regime is so expensive that only major commodity crops are worth deregulating. In addition to analog food mills and genetic engineering, small solar powered robots programmed to recognize edible plants and to snip the stems of competing inedible plants in close proximity could be turned loose. They’d also be useful for weeding conventional farms, thus providing even more incentive to invent them.

Second secret of the bison. Long term, the nutritional value of plants would be increased across the board if only cellulose, a major component of plants, were digestible. Horses, cows, and other ruminants (like bison) can do it. Termites can do it too. Their trick is to host symbiotic microorganisms in their digestive tracts that break the cellulose down in to sugars, which are then easily absorbed. Humans host symbiotic microorganisms in the gut too, but they are not the kind that break down cellulose. This is an obvious target of genetic engineering: we need our intestinal bacteria genetically modified to do for us what their cousins do for goats, sheep, bison, etc., and termites.

Bison’s lament. Plants themselves use, for “food,” sunlight, water, air, and minerals. Wouldn’t it be useful if humans could too? The engineering goal here is genetic improvement of humans. Bison (and humans, currently) can’t but coral, sea slugs, and even giant clams can. So do some large snails. The flatworm Convoluta roscoffensis appears in densely populated, green areas on beaches in the U.K. It acquires algae by eating the egg case from which it emerges, and which algae seek and adhere to in anticipation. The algae take up residence in the worm between cells of its body. According to Oschman, “Upon loss of the theca, the alga assumes an irregularly shaped form. Fingerlike processes of the algal cells penetrate between adjacent animal cells.” The worm seeks sunlight to support the algae. As the worm matures, its digestive system degenerates and it begins to rely for nutrition on the algae that live in its translucent body, because it can no longer eat.

Increasing the degree of plant-animal integration further, the method used by giant clams and some other animals is to have the symbiotic algae living, not between their cells, but actually inside some of their cells. The algae live inside “symbiosomes,” blobs inside the animal cells that hold the algae separate from the rest of the cell. Sort of like tiny terrariums. The cells supply the algae, in its symbiosome home, with basic chemicals and exposure to light. In return the algae produce nutrients that the animals extract and use.

The degree of integration can be made tighter still by observing that algae (and other plants) do photosynthesis using chloroplasts, small green organelles (organs inside of cells) that give plants their green color. These chloroplasts are thought to have once been independent organisms that, over many long eons, became organelles in the cells of the green plant kingdom as well as some organisms outside that kingdom, like kelp. Why not genetically modify animals so their cells can contain chloroplasts directly, eliminating the inefficiency of using algae as middlemen? The animal kingdom shares the superkingdom of the eukaryotes with the green plant kingdom and some others, so animal and plant cells are not radically different.

Food, again. Indeed, why shouldn’t people and other higher animals do photosynthesis using extracellular algae like the convoluta work, intracellular algae like the giant clam, or chloroplasts like ordinary plants? There seems little point in restricting this valuable food production technology to plants and lower animals like worms, clams and snails. We would develop an attractive, healthy-looking greenish sheen, and would be making some of our own food from sunlight, further advancing food production by having some of it done by our own bodies. Technologically this is a tough task, and a long-term goal presumably involving genetic modification of the human germ line. But the benefits certainly seem impressive, and the scientific advances required to make it happen, worth supporting.

References

“In the UK agricultural employment has gradually declined…”: 20 year plus trendwatch, UK Agriculture, http://www.ukagriculture.com/farming_today/20year_plus_trends.cfm.

“…in the US the percentage of the labor force devoted to agriculture…”: E. Nosal and M. Shenk, Is manufacturing going the way of agriculture? Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/trends/2007/0307/02ecoact.cfm.

“…in Australia the percentage decreased…”: L. Lu and D. Hedley, The impact of the 2002-03 drought on the economy and agricultural employment, Australian Government Treasury, http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/817/HTML/docshell.asp?URL=03_article_2.asp.

“…obesity is up in all three countries!”: F. Sassi, M. Devaux, M. Cecchini, and E. Rusticelli, “The obesity epidemic: analysis of past and projected future trends in selected OECD countries,” OECD Health Working Papers, No. 45, OECD
publishing, 2009, http://masetto.sourceoecd.org/vl=3780186/cl=24/nw=1/rpsv/cgi.....z9z7k.pdf.

“…productivity being the quantity produced…”:
“…the greater the diversity of species”:
E. O. Wilson, The Future of Life, Random House, 2002.

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride”: James Kelly, Scottish Proverbs, 1721. Http://www.google.com/search?q=”beggars+would+ride”

“analog food mill”…”square strip of heavy paste”…”chuffing”: W. Macfarlane, Free vacation, Analog (Oct. 1967, vol. LXXX, no. 2, pp. 114-125.

“Coral, sea slugs, and even giant clams do it.” D. Yellowlees, T. A. Rees and W. Leggat, Metabolic interactions between algal symbionts and invertebrate hosts, Plant Cell Environ. (May 2008), vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 679-94.

“So do some large snails.” T. Berner, A. Wishkovsky and Z. Dubinsky, “Endozoic algae in shelled gastropods - a new symbiotic association in coral reefs? I. Photosynthetically active zooxanthellae in Strombus tricornis.” Coral Reefs (1986) vol. 5, pp. 103-106.

…”Upon loss of the theca, the alga assumes an irregularly shaped form. Fingerlike processes of the algal cells penetrate between adjacent animal cells.”…: J. L. Oschman, Journal of Phycology (Sept. 1966), vol. 2, issue 3, pp. 105-111. Also R. E. Lee, Phycology (3rd ed.), Cambridge University Press, 1999, who puts it, “Upon loss of the theca, the alga assumes an irregularly shaped form, with fingerlike processes of the algal cells penetrating between adjacent animal cells.”

“These chloroplasts are thought to have once been independent organisms”: J. W. Kimball, Endosymbiosis and the origin of eukaryotes, in Kimball’s Biology Pages,
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/E/Endosymbiosis.html, 2009.

For any assembly or structure, whether an isolated bunker or a self sustaining space colony, to be able to function perpetually, the ability to manufacture any of the parts necessary to maintain, or expand, the structure is an obvious necessity. Conventional metal working techniques, consisting of forming, cutting, casting or welding present extreme difficulties in size and complexity that would be difficult to integrate into a self sustaining structure.

Forming requires heavy high powered machinery to press metals into their final desired shapes. Cutting procedures, such as milling and lathing, also require large, heavy, complex machinery, but also waste tremendous amounts of material as large bulk shapes are cut away emerging the final part. Casting metal parts requires a complex mold construction and preparation procedures, not only does a negative mold of the final part need to be constructed, but the mold needs to be prepared, usually by coating in ceramic slurries, before the molten metal is applied. Unless thousands of parts are required, the molds are a waste of energy, resources, and effort. Joining is a flexible process, and usually achieved by welding or brazing and works by melting metal between two fixed parts in order to join them - but the fixed parts present the same manufacturing problems.

Ideally then, in any self sustaining structure, metal parts should be constructed only in the final desired shape but without the need of a mold and very limited need for cutting or joining. In a salient progressive step toward this necessary goal, NASA demonstrates the innovative Electron Beam Free Forming Fabrication (http://www.aeronautics.nasa.gov/electron_beam.htm) Process. A rapid metal fabrication process essentially it “prints” a complex three dimensional object by feeding a molten wire through a computer controlled gun, building the part, layer by layer, and adding metal only where you desire it. It requires no molds and little or no tooling, and material properties are similar to other forming techniques. The complexity of the part is limited only by the imagination of the programmer and the dexterity of the wire feed and heating device.

Electron beam freeform fabrication process in action

According to NASA materials research engineer Karen Taminger, who is involved in developing the EBF3 process, extensive simulations and modeling by NASA of long duration space flights found no discernable pattern to the types of parts which failed, but the mass of the failed parts remained remarkably consistent throughout the studies done. This is a favorable finding to in-situe parts manufacturing and because of this the EBF³ team at NASA has been developing a desktop version. Taminger writes:

“Electron beam freeform fabrication (EBF³) is a cross-cutting technology for producing structural metal parts…The promise of this technology extends far beyond its applicability to low-cost manufacturing and aircraft structural designs. EBF³ could provide a way for astronauts to fabricate structural spare parts and new tools aboard the International Space Station or on the surface of the moon or Mars”

NASA’s Langley group working on the EBF3 process took their prototype desktop model for a ride on the microgravity simulating NASA flight and found the process works just fine even in micro gravity, or even against gravity.

A structural metal part fabricated from EBF³

The advantages this system offers are significant. Near net shape parts can be manufactured, significantly reducing scrap parts. Unitized parts can be made - instead of multiple parts that need riveting or bolting, final complex integral structures can be made. An entire spacecraft frame could be ‘printed’ in one sitting. The process also creates minimal waste products and is highly energy and feed stock efficient, critical to self sustaining structures. Metals can be placed only where they are desired and the material and chemistry properties can be tailored through the structure. The technical seminar features a structure with a smooth transitional gradient from one alloy to another. Also, structures can be designed specifically for their intended purposes, without needing to be tailored to manufacturing process, for example, stiffening ridges can be curvilinear, in response to the applied forces, instead of typical grid patterns which facilitate easy conventional manufacturing techniques. Manufactures, such as Sciaky Inc, (http://www.sciaky.com/64.html) are all ready jumping on the process

In combination with similar 3D part ‘printing’ innovations in plastics and other materials, the required complexity for sustaining all the mechanical and structural components of a self sustaining structure is plummeting drastically. Isolated structures could survive on a feed stock of scrap that is perpetually recycled as worn parts are replaced by free form manufacturing and the old ones melted to make new feed stock. Space colonies could combine such manufacturing technologies and scrap feedstock with resource collection creating a viable minimal volume and energy consuming system that could perpetually repair the structure – or even build more. Technologies like these show that the atomic level control that nanotechnology manufacturing proposals offer are not necessary to create self sustaining structure, and that with minor developments of modern technology, self sustaining structures could be built and operated successfully.

North Korea warns of a “fire shower of nuclear retaliation” in their latest episode of megalomania.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=7914048
[note, that site attempts to pop up new windows]

Got Lifeboat?

“The unmanned Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter began orbiting the moon at 3:27 a.m. Arizona time Tuesday after a four-day journey from Cape Canaveral, Fla.”

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/06/24/20090624moon0624.html

The link is:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31511398/ns/us_news-military/

“The low-key launch of the new military unit reflects the Pentagon’s fear that the military might be seen as taking control over the nation’s computer networks.”

“Creation of the command, said Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn at a recent meeting of cyber experts, ‘will not represent the militarization of cyberspace.’”

And where is our lifeboat?

Asteroid hazard in the context of technological development

It is easy to notice that the direct risks of collisions with asteroids decreases with technological development. First, they (or, exactly, our estimation of risks) decrease due to more accurate measurement of them - that is, at the expense of more accurate detection of dangerous asteroids and measurements of their orbits we could finally find that the real chance of impact is 0 in the next 100 year. (If, however, will be confirmed the assumption that we live during the episode of comet bombardment, the assessment of risk would increase 100 times to the background.) Second, it decreases due to an increase in our ability to reject asteroids.
On the other hand, the impact of falling asteroids become larger with time - not only because the population density increases, but also because the growing connectedness of the world system, resulting in that damage in one place can spread across the globe. In other words, although the probability of collisions is reducing, the indirect risks associated with the asteroid danger is increasing.
The main indirect risks are:
A) The destruction of hazardous industries in the place of the fall - for example, nuclear power plant. The entire mass of the station in such a case would evaporated and the release of radiation would be higher than in Chernobyl. In addition, there may be additional nuclear reactions because of sudden compression of the station when it is struck by asteroid. Yet the chances of a direct hit of an asteroid in the nuclear plants are small, but they grow with the growing number of stations.
B) There is a risk that even a small group of meteors, moving a specific angle in a certain place in the earth’s surface could lead to lunch of the system for the Prevention of rocket attacks and lead to an accidental nuclear war. Similar consequences could have a small air explosion of an asteroid (a few meters in size). The first option is more likely for developed superpowers system of warning (but which has flaws or unsecured areas in their ABM system, as in the Russian Federation), while the second - for the regional nuclear powers (like India and Pakistan, North Korea, etc.) which are not able to track missiles by radars, but could react to a single explosion.
C) The technology to drive asteroids in the future will create a hypothetical possibility to direct asteroids not only from Earth, but also on it. And even if there will be accidental impact of the asteroid, there will be talks about that it was sent on purpose. Yet hardly anyone will be sent to Earth asteroids, because such action can easily be detected, the accuracy is low and it need to be prepared for decades before event.
D) Deviations of hazardous asteroids will require the creation of space weapons, which could be nuclear, laser or kinetic. Such weapons could be used against the Earth or the spacecrafts of an opponent. Although the risk of applying it against the ground is small, it still creates more potential damage than the falling asteroids.
E) The destruction of the asteroid with nuclear explosion would lead to an increase in its affecting power at the expense of its fragments – to the greater number of blasts over a larger area, as well as the radioactive contamination of debris.
Modern technological means give possibility to move only relatively small asteroids, which are not global threat. The real danger is black comets in size of several kilometers which are moving on elongated elliptical orbits at high speeds. However, in the future, space can be quickly and cheaply explored through self-replicating robots based on nanoteh. This will help to create huge radio telescopes in space to detect dangerous bodies in the solar system. In addition, it is enough to plant one self-replicating microrobot on the asteroid, to multiply it and then it could break the asteroid on parts or build engines that will change its orbit. Nanotehnology will help us to create self-sustaining human settlements on the Moon and other celestial bodies. This suggests that the problem of asteroid hazard will in a few decades be outdated.
Thus, the problem of preventing collisions of the Earth with asteroids in the coming decades can only be a diversion of resources from the global risks:
First, because we are still not able to change orbits of those objects which actually can lead to the complete extinction of humanity.
Secondly, by the time (or shortly thereafter), when the nuclear missile system for destruction of asteroids will be created, it will be obsolete, because nanotech can quickly and cheaply harness the solar system by the middle of 21 century, and may, before .
And third, because such system at time when Earth is divided into warring states will be weapon in the event of war.
And fourthly, because the probability of extinction of humanity as a result of the fall of an asteroid in a narrow period of time when the system of deviation of the asteroids will be deployed, but powerful, nanotechnology is not yet established, is very small. This time period may be equal to 20 years, say from 2030 - until 2050, and the chances of falling bodies of 10 km size during this time, even if we assume that we live in a period comet bombardment, when the intensity is 100 times higher - is at 1 to 15 000 (based on an average frequency of the fall of bodies every 30 million years). Moreover, given the dynamics, we can reject the indeed dangerous objects only at the end of this period, and perhaps even later, as larger the asteroid, the more extensive and long-term project for its deviation is required. Although 1 to 15 000 is still unacceptable high risk, it is commensurate with the risk of the use of space weapons against the Earth.
In the fifth, anti-asteroid protection diverts attention from other global issues, the limited human attention and financial resources. This is due to the fact that the asteroid danger is very easy for understanding - it is easy to imagine, it is easy to calculate the probabilities and it is clear to the public. And there is no doubt of its reality, and there are clear ways for protection. (e.g. the probability of volcanic disaster comparable to the asteroid impact by various estimates, is from 5 to 20 times higher at the same level of energy – but we have no idea how it can be prevented.) So it differs from other risks that are difficult to imagine, that are impossible quantify, but which may mean the probability of complete extinction of tens of percent. These are the risks of AI, biotech, nanotech and nuclear weapons.
In the sixth, when talking about relatively small bodies like Apophis, it may be cheaper to evacuate the area of the fall than to deviate the asteroid. A likely the area of the impact will be ocean.
But I did not call to abandon antiasterod protection, because we first need to find out whether we live in the comet bombardment period. In this case, the probability of falling 1 km body in the next 100 years is equal to 6 %. (Based on data on the hypothetical fall in the last 10 000 years, like a comet Klovis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_event , traces of which can be 500 000 in the craters of similar entities called Carolina Bays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_bays crater, and around New Zealand in 1443 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahuika_crater and others 2 impacts in last 5 000 years , see works of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_Impact_Working_Group ). We must first give power to the monitoring of dark comets and analysis of fresh craters.

Here’s a story that should concern anyone wanting to believe that the military has a complete and accurate inventory of chemical and biological warfare materials.

“An inventory of deadly germs and toxins at an Army biodefense lab in Frederick found more than 9,200 vials of material that was unaccounted for in laboratory records, Fort Detrick officials said Wednesday. The 13 percent overage mainly reflects stocks left behind in freezers by researchers who retired or left Fort Detrick since the biological warfare defense program was established there in 1943, said Col. Mark Kortepeter, deputy commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.”

The rest of the story appears here:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=7863828

Given that “The material was in tiny, 1mm vials that could easily be overlooked,” and included serum from Korean hemorrhagic fever patients, the lack of adequate inventory controls to this point creates the impression that any number of these vials could be outside their lab. Of course, they assure us they have it all under control. Which will be cold comfort if we don’t have a lifeboat.

Many years ago, in December 1993 to be approximate, I noticed a space-related poster on the wall of Eric Klien’s office in the headquarters of the Atlantis Project. We chatted for a bit about the possibilities for colonies in space. Later, Eric mentioned that this conversation was one of the formative moments in his conception of the Lifeboat Foundation.

Another friend, filmmaker Meg McLain has noticed that orbital hotels and space cruise liners are all vapor ware. Indeed, we’ve had few better depictions of realistic “how it would feel” space resorts since 1968’s Kubrick classic “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Remember the Pan Am flight to orbit, the huge hotel and mall complex, and the transfer to a lunar shuttle? To this day I know people who bought reservation certificates for whenever Pan Am would begin to fly to the Moon.

In 2004, after the X Prize victory, Richard Branson announced that Virgin Galactic would be flying tourists by 2007. So far, none.

A little later, Bigelow announced a fifty million dollar prize if only tourists could be launched to orbit by January 2010. I expect the prize money won’t be claimed in time.

Why? Could it be that the government is standing in the way? And if tourism in space can’t be “permitted” what of a lifeboat colony?

Meg has set out to make a documentary film about how the human race has arrived four decades after the Moon landing and still no tourist stuff. Two decades after Kitty Hawk, a person could fly across the country; three decades, across any ocean.

Where are the missing resorts?

Here is the link to her film project:
http://www.freewebs.com/11at40/

Jim Davies of Strike the Root writes about Galt’s Gulch and some gulch-like projects. These appeal to him because of the exponential trends in government power and abuse of power. He writes, in part,

“We have the serious opportunity in our hands right now of terminating the era of government absolutely, and so of removing from the human race the threat of ever more brutal tyranny ending only with WMD annihilation–while opening up vistas of peaceful prosperity and technological progress which even a realist like myself cannot find words to describe. ”

http://www.strike-the-root.com/91/davies/davies11.html

Avoiding those terrible events is what building our Lifeboat is all about. Got Lifeboat?