Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: habitats – Page 103

Someday, people across the world will look back on September 2018, much like we look back on the terror attacks of 9/11 or the safe return of Apollo 13 in 1970. They are touchstone moments in world history. For Americans, they are as indelible as Pearl Harbor, the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the first moon landing.

So, what happened just now? The month isn’t even half over, and the only events we hear about on the news are related to Hurricane Florence and Paul Manafort. (In case you live under a rock or are reading this many years hence, the hurricane made landfall on the coast of the Carolinas, and the lobbyist / political consultant / lawyer / Trump campaign chairman pled guilty to charges and has agreed to cooperate in the continuing Mueller investigation).

No—I am not referring to either event on the USA east coast. I am referring to a saga unfolding 254 miles above the Earth—specifically a Whodunit mystery aboard the International Space Station (ISS). NASA hasn’t seen this level of tawdry intrigue since astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak attacked a rival for another astronaut’s affection—driving across the country in a diaper to confront her love interest.

So What is the Big Deal This Week?!

It didn’t begin as a big deal—and perhaps this is why mainstream news services are slow to pick up on the latest information. But now, in my opinion, it is a very big deal.

A small hole was discovered on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft (a lifeboat) attached to the International Space Station. That hole, about the size of a pea, resulted in the slow decompression of atmosphere. The air that our astronauts breathe was leaking out of ISS and into the void of space.

So far, the story is unremarkable. Ground scientists issued two comfort statements about the apparent accident. They addressed the possible cause and the potential risk:

  1. This small hole could have occurred on the ground (during construction). Alternatively, it could be the result of a micro-meteorite or even man-made space debris. Perhaps a fleck of varnish peeled off of a satellite and collided at high speed with the massive, orbiting space station. No problem. The ISS and each commuter spacecraft that dock with it are designed to sustain collisions with small particles—even ones that punch a pea-sized hole through the hull.
  2. Air pressure in the ISS and in each spacecraft is only 1 atmosphere. This type of small leak could effectively be stemmed by simply applying duct tape.

The initial news event was interesting to space buffs, but it didn’t seem to present a significant threat to our astronauts, nor require a massive technical response. You may recall that duct tape played a critical role in getting the Apollo 13 astronauts safely back to Earth almost 50 years ago. The crisis that they faced was far worse. The solution required extensive impromptu engineering both in Houston and up in the spacecraft. What an awesome historical echo and footnote to an event that captured the hearts and minds of so many people back in 1970.

But the story does not end with a piece of duct tape. In fact, it just got much more interesting…

After a few days, NASA revealed that the hole was intentionally drilled, and the deed probably occurred while the ship was docked at the space station. Since there is no log of activity with tools in this section of the laboratory, it strongly suggests an act of sabotage by one of the astronauts on board.

And now, we have some new information: Guided by ground engineers, astronauts fished an endoscope through the hole to inspect the outside of the spacecraft. Guess what?! That same drill bit damaged the meteorite shield which stands 15 mm beyond the pressurized hull of the spacecraft. This will add significant risk to anyone traveling back to earth in the damaged ship.

One theory is that a member of the crew wanted to create the conditions to more quickly return to Earth. Now, that return trip may present and elevated risk to occupants.
This story has not yet concluded, of course. It will likely conclude with tragedy or triumph. In the better scenario, no one will die—but successful return and reentry will be followed by a criminal conviction or court martial. I am having difficulty envisioning an alternate outcome.
Read about it here. The story is unfolding, but the details are utterly fascinating.

Philip Raymond co-chairs CRYPSA, hosts the New York Bitcoin Event and is keynote speaker at Cryptocurrency Conferences. He sits on the New Money Systems board of Lifeboat Foundation and is a top Bitcoin writer at Quora. Book a presentation or consulting engagement.

WASP, the Italian manufacturer behind DeltaWASP 3D printers, has unveiled a new construction system which will be used to print sustainable houses in a village.

The Crane WASP, also referred to as the “the infinity 3D printer” is designed to accelerate the development of the technological village of Shamballa, a WASP project to develop 3D printed eco-friendly houses. The company states.

“Crane WASP the Infinity 3D printer reinterprets the classic building cranes from a digital manufacturing point of view. It is composed of a main printer unit that can be assembled in different configurations depending on the printing area and therefore on the dimensions of the architectural structure to be calculated in 3D.”

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The world’s largest offshore windfarm has officially opened. The project commanding the Numero Uno status is the Walney Extension. An official inauguration was marked as September 6, and it now means that the Walney Extension overtakes the London Array as the world’s largest offshore wind farm.

How large? Stats say the farm, located in the Irish Sea off the Walney Island coast in Cumbria, covers an area of around 145 sq km (55 square miles). Project watchers are talking electricity for nearly 600,000 UK homes. It’s especially being touted as having been built on time and on budget.

It’s also being described as a “659-megawatt .” The Danish company Orsted, PKA and PFA are the names behind this project.

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4K — This is stunning! 🤪🤩💫 Goodnight, Earthlings! Credit video: Adrien Mauduit Films.

There’s something fascinating about our own home galaxy. Even if we still cannot look at it from above and gaze at the full span of its arms, the sideway view offers a quite a showdown. To me the central part of the milky way is the most spectacular sight of the night sky. It’s something you can clearly see with the naked eye when you are away from city lights. It’s a sight that really brings your down to Earth and lets you wonder at how small we are, while comforting you in the thought that you are part of this Earth and the Universe. I could gaze for hours at the central bulge and just contemplate its compelling beauty from where it rises till where it sets. From a photographic and scientific point of view, this part of the milky way is so interesting to capture and study because if our solar system is located in its suburbs, the downtown district of our home galaxy harbors billions upon billions of stars. They are so concentrated that the total light coming from them can be seen millions of light years away and really creates this halo of light visible when you take a picture of it, much like a fire blazing. However a thick blanket of dark hydrogen clouds shroud and block the complete view. You can even see these fine dark lanes with the naked eye and they really participate in making the whole picture something from another world. Of all of them the Pipe and Dark Horse nebulae are descending down the core obscuring the upper part of the central bulge. In addition to this celestial show many emission nebulae- reliques of previously exploded stars, pepper the disc. Among them the bright and colorful Lagoon nebula, the pink and blue Trifid nebula, the red Cat Paw, War and Peace and Prawn nebulae around Scorpius. Moreover many star clouds (like the Sagittarius star cloud) and other remarquable star clusters also participate in strewing this already full frame. Finally the closest stars (like Antares) and near planets visible during the time of shoot (Mars, Saturn, Jupiter) also give a sense of just how ridiculously big the distance between Earth the core is.

Being fascinated by the core since I started astrophotography where it was barely visible (Denmark), I started looking for the best places in the northern hemisphere where I could get a clear view. The first time I really saw it was on the beautiful island of Tenerife 4 years ago and I sincerely will remember that experience for the rest of my life. Gazing upon the center of our galaxy in its full glory is something everyone ought to try. That’s why I decided to dedicate the third opus of my astrolapse series ‘Galaxies’ exclusively to the core, assembling my best clips to date and bringing them to the public, mainly to raise awareness and to get our night sky a bit more attention. I was appalled by just how many people have never seen the milky way so maybe by showing the true beauty of the universe I could contribute in my own limited way to bringing the real dark skies to the hectic and light polluted urban jungle.

The goal once again was to use the best techniques in astrophotography and time-lapse to exploit each frame to its maximum without compromising the quality. From planning, to traveling to remote locations, to shooting with some of the best astro-gear, and eventually finding a novel post-processing workflow, I was able to get some astounding and never-seen-before sequences of the core. Traveling to very elevated and dark places allowed me to get the best signal to noise ratio as well as the best ‘contrast effect’ in the halo created by the stars in the bulge. The array of extremely sharp and bright lenses I utilized permitted to decrease shutter speed and get less motion blur while getting extremely clean shots with little aberration.

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We are not alone in our concerns related to the current paywalling of science. Earlier this year, researchers at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York decided that this problem deserves the attention of decision makers and the general public, and they started producing a documentary in order to reveal the flaws of the existing system of scientific publications and to propose solutions. This documentary is Paywall: The Business of Scholarship.

The producer of the documentary, journalist and filmmaker Jason Schmitt, contacted university representatives, university and public libraries, open access publishing houses, and researchers around the globe to ask them if they have ever hit paywalls and how paywalls affected their professional activities.

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Sections of cities all over the world are being demolished to meet increasing demand for transport infrastructure. The process of building new roads, harbour crossings, metro systems and light rail lines seems unending. Large-scale construction includes loss of public space, housing and backyards.

Historic suburbs, such as Sydney’s Haberfield, have suffered. And then there’s the issue of cost blow-outs and traffic gridlock. There are rumblings, too, about environmental impacts and equity of access. But there is actually one public transport option that can mitigate many of these concerns: cars.

Cable cars now grace many urban skylines, including some of the world’s most populous, congested and poorest cities, such as Colombia’s city of Medellin, but also the US city of Portland. These cities have integrated cable cars with existing transport networks. The newer versions are cheap, quick to build and solar generating. Perhaps it’s time for Australia to start looking skyward for solutions.

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Germany helped make solar power cheap. As of June this year, it boasts 1 million homes that have installed rooftop solar panels. That means the country produces a lot of renewable energy—sometimes more than it can use.

At such times, German grid operators have had to pay neighboring countries or grids to use the excess electricity. Since the beginning of this year, German grids have accumulated 194 hours (paywall) with negative power prices.

Now Germany is turning to energy storage as a solution to the problem of excess electricity. On Aug. 28, an energy ministry official attended the commissioning (link in German) of the 100,000th home to install a battery-storage system that’s connected to the grid.

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With threats of sea level rise, storm surge and other natural disasters, researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science are turning to nature to protect humans from nature. They are developing innovative ways to guard coastlines and prevent scouring and erosion from waves and storms using bioinspired materials that mimic mangrove trees found along shores, rivers and estuaries in the tropics and subtropics. Growing from a tangle of roots that twist their way out of the mud, mangrove trees naturally protect shorelines, shelter coastal ecosystem habitats and provide important water filtration. In many cases, these roots trap sediments flowing down rivers and off the land, helping to stabilize the coastline.

Certain root systems even have the ability to dissipate tidal energy through unique hydrological flows and divert the energy of water in different directions reducing risk of coastal damage. Yet, to date, few studies have examined the fluid dynamics such as flow structure and on mangrove roots.

For a study, published in the American Physical Society’s journal, Physical Review Fluids, researchers singled out the red mangrove tree (Rhizophora mangle) from more than 80 different species of mangroves, because of its robust network of roots that can withstand extreme environmental conditions. The red mangrove provided the researchers with an ideal model for bioinspired shoreline applications.

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A sapphire-colored dye called methylene blue is a common ingredient in wastewater from textile mills.

But University at Buffalo scientists think it may be possible to give this industrial pollutant a second life. In a new study, they show that the dye, when dissolved in water, is good at storing and releasing energy on cue.

This makes the compound a promising candidate material for redox flow batteries—large, rechargeable liquid-based batteries that could enable future wind farms and solar homes to stockpile electricity for calm or rainy days.

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