Lifeboat Foundation

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This is my second video presentation on the topic of GEO space-based solar power (astroelectricity). This was also given via video at a conference in Portugal on 22 Aug 2020. After a brief introduction to astroelectricity, the 24-minute presentation addresses how global astroelectricity will enable most of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals to be addressed and, especially, how affordable middle-class housing can be built. We are living in an exciting time (in a positive sense) where emerging technologies will enable us to push through these difficult times. The key is to undertake an orderly transition from fossil carbon fuels to astroelectricity and not be sidetracked by poorly developed “solutions” such as the Paris Climate Agreement and the Green New Deal.

The world needs a peaceful, orderly plan to transition from fossil carbon fuels to globally decentralized sustainable energy sufficient to enable worldwide middle-class prosperity. Nuclear power, wind power, and ground solar power—“solutions” often tied to the Green New Deal—cannot practically achieve this. Astroelectricity, generated in space by space-based solar power, can meet this need. This presentation builds on the “(Em)powering World Peace and Prosperity Using Astroelectricity” to discuss the global benefits that will arise from transitioning to astroelectricity.

Continue reading “Enriching humanity using astroelectricity” »

To the surprise of many planetary scientists, the oxidized iron mineral hematite has been discovered at high latitudes on the Moon, according to a study published today in Science Advances led by Shuai Li, assistant researcher at the Hawai’i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).

Iron is highly reactive with oxygen—forming reddish rust commonly seen on Earth. The lunar surface and interior, however, are virtually devoid of oxygen, so pristine metallic iron is prevalent on the Moon and highly oxidized iron has not been confirmed in samples returned from the Apollo missions. In addition, hydrogen in solar wind blasts the lunar surface, which acts in opposition to oxidation. So, the presence of highly oxidized iron-bearing minerals, such as hematite, on the Moon is an unexpected discovery.

“Our hypothesis is that lunar hematite is formed through oxidation of lunar surface iron by the oxygen from the Earth’s upper atmosphere that has been continuously blown to the lunar surface by solar wind when the Moon is in Earth’s magnetotail during the past several billion years,” said Li.

Enstatite chondrite meteorites, once considered ‘dry,’ contain enough water to fill the oceans — and then some.

A new study finds that Earth’s water may have come from materials that were present in the inner solar system at the time the planet formed — instead of far-reaching comets or asteroids delivering such water. The findings published on August 28, 2020, in Science suggest that Earth may have always been wet.

Researchers from the Centre de Recherches Petrographiques et Geochimiques (CRPG, CNRS/Universite de Lorraine) in Nancy, France, including one who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, determined that a type of meteorite called an enstatite chondrite contains sufficient hydrogen to deliver at least three times the amount of water contained in the Earth’s oceans, and probably much more.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) — A full moon with a special name given only once every three years will rise this week, according to the Farmer’s Almanac.

The Corn Moon is a full moon that rises in September. The September full moon is usually called the Harvest Moon because it is normally the closest full moon to the autumn equinox.

Every third year, however, a full moon comes in October that’s even closer, making the September full moon a Corn Moon.

Our blue planet having water seems such a simple and obvious fact that the question of why Earth has water at all feels like a trivial one. However, the origin of this key ingredient for life has remained a long-standing topic of debate. According to models of Solar System formation, Earth, as an inner Solar System planet, should have little to no water. On page 1110 of this issue, Piani et al. ([ 1 ][1]) analyze enstatite chondrite meteorites, a material similar to Earth’s main building blocks, and address the origins of Earth’s water.

Early models of planetary formation predicted that the nebular gas near our young Sun was too hot to form ice.

Solar flares emit sudden, strong bursts of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun’s surface and its atmosphere, and eject plasma and energetic particles into inter-planetary space. Since large solar flares can cause severe space weather disturbances affecting Earth, to mitigate their impact their occurrence needs to be predicted. However, as the onset mechanism of solar flares is unclear, most flare prediction methods so far have relied on empirical methods.

The research team led by Professor Kanya Kusano (Director of the Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research, Nagoya University) recently succeeded in developing the first physics-based model that can accurately predict imminent large solar flares. The work was published in the journal Science on July 31, 2020.

The new method of flare prediction, called the kappa scheme, is based on the theory of “double-arc instability,” that is a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instability triggered by magnetic reconnection. The researchers assumed that a small-scale reconnection of magnetic field lines can form a double-arc (m-shape) magnetic field and trigger the onset of a solar flare (Figure 1). The kappa scheme can predict how a small magnetic reconnection triggers a large flare and how a large solar flare can occur.