U.S. Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group (SSG) Meeting
Our meeting with top U.S. scientists from the federal government went
well thanks to much support by our growing Scientific Advisory Board
(SAB). As our Board grows, it is giving us more and more resources to
accomplish projects. Unlike most small Scientific Advisory Boards who
are only able to offer a bit of advice, our Scientific Advisory Board is
able to cause actions to occur.
First, Chuck Weir on our Scientific Advisory Board organized conference
space for us at the Port of San Francisco office. Bruce Klein on our
Scientific Advisory Board arranged for 2 cases of water to be available
at the meeting. Additional SAB members who arranged to attend were
Michael Anissimov and Michael Dickey.
Second, the following SAB members helped cover our expenses related to
this meeting: Kemal Akman, Zeresenay "Zeray" Alemseged, Arlan Andrews,
Sr., John A. Barnden, David Brin, Matt Browne, Michael Dickey, Rob
Enderle, Michael Fleischmann, Linda Glenn, Jeffrey Herrlich, Behrokh
"Berok" Khoshnevis, Jeff Krukin, Nickolaus Leggett, PJ Manney, Matthew
L. McGuirl, Bud Mishra, Tony Rothman, Douglas Rushkoff, Jim Rutt,
Stephan A. Schwartz, Michael Silverton, Jaan Tallinn, Anthony Waller,
and Chuck Weir. (We had so much help that we ended up with a surplus!)
We began with four reports by Scientific Advisory Board members. We
presented:
1) 21st Century Automated Construction System for Navy Construction
Systems for Seabees and NavFac by Berok Khoshnevis, Director, Center for
Rapid Automated Construction Technologies (CRAFT). This system will
enable the Navy to reduce logistics costs by enabling them to ship
robots to oversea locations where they will build buildings and other
large objects using mostly local materials so less material needs to be
shipped overseas. Prototypes of this system have already been
successfully tested.
2) The outline of a chapter to be entitled "The Intelligent Universe"
for the Cosmos and Culture Book (forthcoming from NASA) by James
Gardner. This paper called for the launch of a Manhattan Project in
cultural anthropology: The goals and motives that guide human action
must be looked at in the light of all that we know and understand; their
roots and growth, their essence, and above all their validity, must be
critically examined with every intellectual resource that we have. This
project becomes more important by the day as exponentially improving
technologies will soon allow individual humans to do great harm as well
as good.
3) "Runaway Global Warming" by Paul Brown. The most interesting idea in
this proposal was to use andhydrous ammonia instead of hydrogen as an
energy carrier. Hydrogen is not a practical fuel because of safety and
storage problems and its low volumetric energy density. Instead, we can
use anhydrous ammonia (NH3), a hydrogen energy carrier with a high
volumetric energy density. It’s non-explosive and can be stored as a
liquid under low pressure, similar to propane.
4) "Terrestrial Peoples, Extraterrestrial Persons" by Charles Tandy. The
paper's most important idea is that he suggests two new Concerts (one
Terrestrial, one Extraterrestrial) and that "implementing both proposals
in concert would have a synergistic effect". (Concert 1: The political
structure of Earth, which is neither a Law of Peoples nor a Law of
Persons, is unworkable. But at this unique point in history it is both
desirable and feasible to establish a Terrestrial Law of Peoples along
the lines of Kant; Rawls; and, Daalder and Lindsay.) (Concert 2: The
political structure of Space, which is neither a Law of Peoples nor a
Law of Persons, is unworkable. But at this unique point in history it is
both desirable and feasible to establish an Extraterrestrial Law of
Persons along the lines indicated herein.) Contrary to what you may have
heard, the paper does NOT suggest termination or replacement of the UN. You may want to read the paper for yourself; this paper by Charles Tandy
may be found in an anthology edited by him: Death And Anti-Death, Volume
5 (Palo Alto: Ria University Press, forthcoming 2007).
Next we showed the rough draft of a presentation done by SAB member
Philippe Van Nedervelde. SAB member Sergio M.L. Tarrero was in charge
of filming and financing this presentation which was done at Transvision
2007. We hope to release this presentation for worldwide screening
shortly. It is being translated into multiple languages, special
effects are being added, and other modifications are under way.
We then discussed our InternetShield, BioShield, and NanoShield reports. Finally time ran out on this three and a half hour meeting. Note that
over 30 SAB members helped make this meeting a success. That is more
people than most nonprofits even have on their SAB! And we have already
received more materials from SAB members for our next meeting...
CreateHope
An employee of Hewlett-Packard recently suggested to CreateHope that the
Lifeboat Foundation be included in the campaigns of CreateHope
(http://www.createhope.com), so we are now included in their employee
giving programs to some of the nation's largest corporations. We thank
this employee whoever he/she is!
Related news: Learn how you can get your employer (even if you have
retired from them) to match donations to the Lifeboat Foundation at
http://lifeboat.com/ex/matching.donation
End of the Year
The year is almost over so now is your last chance to make your tax-deductible donations before the year ends. Our highest priority is for our Thermal Censorship of Ecophagy Study by Robert A. Freitas Jr which you can select as the Donation Purpose at https://lifeboat.com/ex/donations
Fight@AIDS Team
Adrian-Bogdan (Adi) Morut, joins our FightAIDS@Home team, becoming the second person to join in the past three days. Learn more at http://lifeboat.com/ex/fight.aids
We now have a Facebook group at
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7172548454 thanks to Michael
Anissimov.
We now have a NanoShield Cause Facebook group at
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_ca...=9007631
and an A-PRIZE Cause Facebook group at
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_ca...=9007631
thanks to Matt McGuirl.
Blog
Joseph P. Jackson III joins our blog team with his first post at http://lifeboat.com/blog/?p=106
More Languages
Thanks to Jack Halpern we now have an Esperanto version of our about page. Jack has raised our total to 11 languages!
Growing Membership
Here are some of the recent donations/pledges we have received since
the last newsletter:
Sergio M.L. Tarrero: $170,
Michael Fleischmann: $150,
Michael Anissimov: $85,
Eric Bauswell: $85,
Michael Dickey: $85,
Jason Gaverick Matheny: $85,
Thoughtware.TV: $85,
Philippe Van Nedervelde: $85,
Kenneth P. Weiss: $85,
Anonymous: $40,
Matt Browne: $30,
C M Anderson: $25,
Vincent A. Cate: $25,
Adam Dobrin: $25,
Rick Hubbard: $25,
Matthew L. McGuirl: $25,
Mark A. Walker: $25,
James William Taylor: $25,
Frank W. Sudia: $20,
Stephen Fleming: $10,
Joshua Fox: $10,
Adrian-Bodgan Morut (Adi): $20,
Christopher Dilkus: $10,
Sylvia Engdahl: $10,
Joseph P. Jackson III: $10,
Glenn A. Miller: $10,
Sarah Jane Pell: $10,
John N. Philipps (Jack): $10,
Pennye Shaw: $10,
Kaj Sotala: $10,
Michael Vassar: $10,
and Donna Beck: $1.
Our Join Us page at https://lifeboat.com/ex/join.us now allows you to
pay for your membership anywhere from monthly to every ten years.
