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http://news.yahoo.com/nowhere-japans-growing-plutonium-stockpile-064038796.html

A half century after being developed, nuclear pulse propulsion remains the only practical system of interplanetary travel. What is required to launch a bomb propelled mission to the outer solar system? Well, first you need.…..bombs.

There is no shortage of bomb material on planet Earth. The problem is lack of a vehicle that can get this material to the nearest place a nuclear mission can be launched; the Moon. For over a quarter of a century a launch vehicle capable of sending significant payloads (and people) to the Moon has been lacking. The Space Transportation System, aka the space shuttle, was a dead end as far as exploration due to the lack of funding for a Sidemount cargo version.

Now we wait on the SLS.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121228100748.htm

Only this human rated Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV) with a powerful escape tower will be suitable for transporting survivable packaged fissionables to the Moon. It is not only the fissionables that are required; hundreds of tons of water from lunar ice deposits are necessary to fill the radiation shield for any such Human Space Flight Beyond Earth Lunar Orbit (HSF-BELO).

Eventually lunar resources can be used to actually construct atomic spaceships and also the thorium reactors necessary to power colonies in the outer system. It is the establishment of a beam propulsion infrastructure that will finally open up the solar system to large scale development. This will require a massive infrastructure on the Moon. Such a base will serve as insurance against an extinction level event wiping out our species. As such it deserves a full measure of DOD funding. Like that trillion dollars that is going to be spent on the F-35 stealth fighter over the next half century.

Only monthly Heavy Lift Vehicle launches of payloads to the Moon can be considered as a beginning to a true space program- where Apollo left off. There is no cheap and there is no flexible path.

OK, why do we need a different technology to achieve commercial viability (as in mass space tourism) for either interplanetary or interstellar travel?

In many of my previous posts I had shown that all the currently proposed technologies or technologies to be, are either phenomenally expensive (on the order of several multiples of World GDP), bordering on the impossible or just plain conjecture. This is very unfortunate, as I was hoping that some of the proposals would at least appear realistic, but no joy. I feel very sorry for those who are funding these projects. For a refresher I have posted an updated version of the Interstellar Challenge Matrix (ICM) here which documents 5 of the 11 inconsistencies in modern physics. I give permission to my readers to use this material for non-commercial or academic uses.

I recently completed the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravity modification published under the title An Introduction to Gravity Modification, 2nd Edition. For the very first time we now have a scientific definition for gravity modification:

Gravity modification is defined as the modification of the strength and/or direction of the gravitational acceleration without the use of mass as the primary source of this modification, in local space time. It consists of field modulation and field vectoring. Field modulation is the ability to attenuate or amplify a force field. Field vectoring is the ability to change the direction of this force field.

Note that this definition specifically states “without the use of mass”, for obvious reasons – for example it does not make sense to carry around the mass of a planet to propel 7 astronauts, does it?

By this definition alone, we have eliminated all three status quo theories – general relativity, quantum gravity and string theories. Therefore, the urgent need to construct a new theory that will facilitate the development of gravity modification technologies.

And further, by this definition we know the additional requirements of such a new theory. The theory should show us, firstly, how to attenuate or amplify the gravitational field strength, and secondly, how to change the direction of this force field – all without using mass.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

The spirituality of space exploration as self-exploration.

Since the dawn of recorded history, humanity has been mesmerized by Earth’s place in the cosmos. Overview is a fascinating short film by Planetary Collective, written by Frank White, exploring the “overview effect” — the profound, shocking feeling that grips astronauts as they see our planet hang in space and the strange new self-awareness it precipitates. The film is based on Frank White’s 1987 book The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution and celebrates the 40th anniversary of NASA’s iconic Blue Marble photograph…

Read more/video here

Last month a colleague of mine and I visited with Dennis Heap, Executive Director of the National Front Range Airport, at Watkins, CO, the location of the future Spaceport Colorado, and Colorado’s contribution to getting into space. Here is Part 4.

In Part 4, I dwell more into the economic concepts necessary for a spaceports’ long term success. The single most important concept one has to understand with any type of port, airport, seaport and spaceports is the concept of the hinterland economy. The hinterland economy is the surrounding local economy that the port services, either by population demographics, commercial & industrial base or transportation hub per its geographic location.

The Sweden-America model, like Westport Malaysia requires that a hinterland economy will eventually be built close to the port. Westport’s then Vice-Chairman of the Board, Gnanalingam (we called him ‘G’) whom I reported to, had the foresight, the influence and the connections within the Malaysian public sector, to encourage the infrastructure development within Pulah Indah and the neighboring locations.

The hinterland is critical to the success of the port. Therefore the key to a port’s success is the clarification of the term ‘local’ in the definition of the concept of the hinterland. When I joined Westport in 1995, a hinterland was defined as within approximately a 15 mile (24 km) radius of the port. In my opinion that was too small a segment of the economy to facilitate the success of Westport. That definition did not match up with Westport’s ambition to be a world class seaport and transshipment hub that could give PSA (Port Authority of Singapore, then largest container port in the world) a run for its money.

So I changed the definition.

I changed the definition of ‘local’ to 7-hours. Any warehouse, manufacturing site or distribution center within a 7-hour drive of Westport was now Westport’s hinterland. And because Westport was in the middle of Peninsula Malaysia, that ‘7-hours’ translated into the whole of Peninsula Malaysia, from the border with Thailand in the North to all the way down South to Singapore. This increased Westport’s hinterland from 350 sq miles (900 sq km) to 51,000 sq miles (132,000 sq km).

Of course that ‘7-hours’ would not have meant much if Malaysia had not built an interstate system of roads. That is why the public sector involvement in the economy is so vital to an economy’s success; in a manner that says, how can we give back to our tax payers?

And coming back to our original topic, that is the beauty of Spaceport Colorado. It is tucked in close to Denver International Airport (DIA) and the city of Denver. Spaceport Colorado’s hinterland is the whole of the Continental United States. First through the passenger traffic via DIA and second tapping into the high end winter tourists market at Aspen, Vail & Beaver Creek ski resorts.

Spaceport Colorado will be an immense success.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

I was recently told by a person commenting on another blog that beamed energy is a myth. The commenter claimed that Fusion energy would be a more likely future development. I cited Criswell and Zehner and gave back.I am a very progressive eco friendly person and I have wondered many years if there is some energy industry conspiracy that keeps clean power from becoming a reality. The only conspiracy is human greed influencing exactly how we live on this planet.

Zehner’s book spells out the situation in a unique way; he calls it as he see’s it and the numbers cannot be spun too much because he presents the basic foundations of what it takes to make the electricity flow. Criswell is more biased toward his proposal even though it is peer reviewed and has all the math equations.

What Criswell is proposing is a river of energy traveling from vast collectors on the surface of the Moon to Earth Geostationary orbit and from there down to surface recievers of several square kilometers.

What fusion proposes is to keep a sustained nuclear reaction going without the use of a sun. The other way to generate useful energy from a fusion reaction is to actually explode H-bombs underground and harvest the resulting heat and nuclear products. The only useful work that can be had from a H-bomb besides this kind of excavation is to use it as a propulsion device for spaceships.

The two questions here seem to be:
1. Can microwave energy be beamed across long distances in space (a quarter million miles or so) from a transmission site on the surface of the moon to a geostationary relay station? Yes or No? Probably yes but what really matters is the size of the geostationary relay station.
If it has to be over a couple square miles in area
then getting it to Earth geo from the metal shop on the Moon may not be practical.

2. Can energy be made available for the projected world population of 10 billion people in the coming decades of this century?

No. To supply the same amount of energy to all 10 billion inhabitants of Earth that is presently consumed by Westerners with a high standard of living would require……..a river of energy being beamed down from space. All the fossil, nuclear, solar, and renewable energy on the planet is NOT going to be able to meet that need without an astronomical amount of coal and gas power plants, along with a huge expansion of nuclear.

It will be cheaper and less suicidal to build the power stations on the Moon.
If it will work.

Last month a colleague of mine and I visited with Dennis Heap, Executive Director of the National Front Range Airport, at Watkins, CO, the location of the future Spaceport Colorado, and Colorado’s contribution to getting into space. Here is Part 3.

In my last post I had mentioned that there were 2 business models for spaceports. I’ll name the first Sweden-America model after spaceports Sweden & America. The second, I’ll name Colorado-Singapore model after (yet to be) spaceports Colorado & Singapore.

The Sweden-America model basic premise is that spaceport ought to be built in remote locations, and then a hinterland economy is eventually built around the spaceport. This approach was originally driven by safety concerns and the need for a rocket range or vacant land for launching rockets to crash back to.

The basic premise of the Colorado-Singapore model is that launch vehicles are safe and that spaceports ought to be built close to centers of commerce and intermodal transportation networks. That is, spaceports are to be built in an existing hinterland economy.

Spaceport Colorado is therefore tucked in close to Denver International Airport and the city of Denver. Spaceport Singapore is to be built within Changi Aiport (ranked #2 out of 388 airports in the world). Changi Airport is located on the Eastern end of the island of Singapore, with Malaysia to the North.

Note that in the case of Spaceport Singapore, the Singapore Strait to the South and East of Changi form a natural rocket range. While Spaceport Colorado has 3,000 acres (less 900 acres for the spaceport) of vacant land to develop additional revenue generating and revenue supporting facilities.

There has been debate about which is the better business model. Both models are correct. Having been Head of Corporate Planning in the early days at Westport, Malaysia, I can assure you that the key is to match your capex with revenue generation. Today the Goggle map of Westport, shows a well-developed island of Pulah Indah. When I worked there in 1995–96 the whole island was virgin and civil engineering firms were draining the swampland.

That is, if there is enough drive, ambition, and cooperation between the private and public sectors a whole island can be transformed from swampland to a world class shipping hub, commercial, industrial & residential zones in a decade. The same is true for spaceports, and for that matter, American cities.

The problem with Spaceport America is that the public sector is not willing to do enough to ensure its success. At least not what it took to ensure Westport’s long term success. New Mexico take a look at Westport and see what you will be missing 10 years from now.

I have to run now. More in the next post.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

Last month a colleague of mine and I visited with Dennis Heap, Executive Director of the National Front Range Airport, at Watkins, CO, the location of the future Spaceport Colorado, and Colorado’s contribution to getting into space. Here is Part 2.

What is a spaceport?

Wikipedia gives a very broad definition of a spaceport, that anything and everything that is used to launch vehicles into orbit, space and interplanetary missions are now termed spaceports. ICBM sites are termed launch sites. There is, however, a distinction between a military site and a commercial site. In the aviation world a military site is termed an ‘airbase’ while a commercial civilian site is termed an ‘airport’. Similarly in the marine world the respective terms are ‘naval base’ and ‘seaport’. In that vein there are ‘spacebases’ and ‘spaceports’. So bear in mind that not everything that is labeled a ‘spaceport’ is one.

As far as I can remember the term ‘spaceport’ caught the public’s imagination only recently with the advent of Spaceport America at Las Cruces, NM. So let’s clarify. A spaceport is port for launching vehicles into suborbital, orbital and interplanetary space whose primary mission is to support and manage commercial activities, not military, not government sponsored launches. And therefore, in the United States there are only 10 existing or proposed spaceports. They are (1)Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, Wallops Island, VA (2)Cecil Field Spaceport, Jacksonville, FL (3)Spaceport Florida, Cape Canaveral (4)Spaceport Oklahoma, Burns Flat, OK (5)Spaceport America, Las Cruces, NM (6)Mojave Air and Spaceport, Mojave, CA (7) California Spaceport, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Lompac, CA (8)Kodiak Launch Complex, Kodiak Island, AK, (9) Spaceport Colorado, Watkins, CO and (10)Spaceport Hawaii, HI.

Map of US Spaceports as of Aug 26, 2011, Courtesy of US Department of Transportation.

The proposed spaceports outside of the United States that interest me are Spaceport Sweden, Spaceport Singapore, and Ras Al Khaimah Spaceport, UAE. Spaceport Sweden is the only one of the three that shows some form of life. The other two appear to be dormant with no signs of life. If one were to compare business concepts, Spaceport Sweden is closer to Spaceport America and Spaceport Singapore is similar to Spaceport Colorado.

Spaceports, real people doing real things to get into space.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

I commented on another blog recently about visiting Titan;

I do not know the pressure in these possible liquid oceans. But if it is, for example, 2 or 3 times that of the Marianas Trench then it is certainly a daunting proposition to explore them with human crewed submarines.

Tremendous pressure would mean transporting a titanium sphere several feet thick there. Not an incredible solution if you make it out of Lunar Titanium and Lunar Solar Power.
After reading Ozzie Zhener’s Green Illusions and the Dan Criswell Lunar Solar Power concept web entries I am becoming skeptical about any other possible approach having any relevance in my lifetime. I turned fifty recently and though they sent John Glenn on a mission, I am not confident of any migration into space anytime soon. This is a case of a 7 year old boy watching Star Trek and believing it might be something like this when I got as old as Bill Shatner was.….is.
If you trouble shoot the problem and use a decision tree to find solutions from a survey of available technology it becomes clear that the contender technologies are either available or readily available in the form of improved copies of half century old prototypes.
If you want to launch a program of under ice manned submarine expeditions to the outer planet moons you would have to start with a huge program of super heavy lift vehicles. This may sound expensive but unlike any other existing approach this single inflexible path has the potential of a hundred thousand fold return on investment.
By landing payloads at the lunar polar ice deposits, the exploitation of Lunar Solar Power resources can begin. I want Greenpeace, and every environmental conservation group that exists to understand that they can have there every dream come true if they ruthlessly exploit the solar energy striking the Moon’s surface. It should be understood that the Moon is dead. It is kind of like Nietsche saying God is dead and God then saying Nietsche is dead; do not worry about polluting the Moon- it is dead.
Once there is Lunar Solar Power to melt ore then large structures can be created. These gargantuan solar energy devices will rapidly cover vast swathes of the lunar surface. The more energy that pours into the metal shops the more energy will be produced for new metal shops. After the energy is available come the microwave transmitting antennae fields. Finally come the space power relay battle stations; these must launch to Earth geostationary orbit. Ever larger battle stations from the Moon will park themselves above a certain spot on the Earth where receiving dishes the size of entire valleys are being built. At some point done the road a river of clean electricity begins to flow from the Moon to Earth.
This rainbow bridge of microwave energy from the surface all the way up to geostationary orbit means powering a beam propulsion launch system of several thousand Isp with power all the way from the Moon. How quickly this airline to space begins operation depends entirely on the resources put into it. Exactly what proportion of this electricity shall be dedicated to establishing new worlds in space?
Though it seems impossible for us to imagine, after every single human being on Earth has a very high western standard of living, what will we do with the excess power? If that Lunar Solar Power is geometrically increasing and feeding itself by adding ever increasing and phenomenal amounts of electricity will it be shut down at that point?
I believe when the full of potential of space is explained to the public and they are convinced then no one will stop a geometric progression of Lunar Solar Power to facilitate new projects. The next big project will be constructing large structures in space at the nearest Libration point. Proposed in 1929 the Bernal Sphere may be a simple structure to melt with microwaves in zero gravity and form into a miles- in-diameter hollow sphere. How many miles in diameter is the question.
When the optimum form and thicknesses of the shell or shells-inside-the shells is determined this will determine the diameter of the sphere. Spheres 20 or 30 miles in diameter have the prospect of being a multi-purpose vehicle; Not only can they act as power relay stations but they can support populations of at least thousands in deep space. Propelled by H-bombs this first product of the industry of the Moon may fill many roles from the start a chain of these hollow moons will stretch out in solar orbit from the Earth.
Human beings have a lot of problem with scale. It takes a certain open mindedness to embrace construction projects of such vast scales. But we have only to look at the pyramids in Egypt to understand that large goals have been met since civilization has been in existence. The numbers tell us this chain of hollow moons can contain larger and larger populations as they grow in sized. If it is actually possible to feed materials into a solar furnace and blow up balloons several miles in diameter then the next factory to build may be around Mercury. Greenpeace may have trouble getting tourists to visit the abandoned Earth.
If all else fails, there is sports. Decades ago I read a short story, called “Moonball” I think, and it had professional sports played in superdomes under the Lunar Surface and televised to Earth.
We could have only females of chilbearing age allowed on the Moon and have them play sports. So if there is an engineered pathogen or the planet killer comet or asteroid hits or a super-volcano lights off the next ice age, we will always have our amazon women on the Moon to save our species.

Last month a colleague of mine and I visited with Dennis Heap, Executive Director of the National Front Range Airport, at Watkins, CO, the location of the future Spaceport Colorado, and Colorado’s contribution to getting into space.

On April 19, 2012, Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a bill that limited a spaceflight entity’s liability for spaceflight participants and paved the way for Spaceport Colorado’s development. The Front Range Airport Authority situated on 3,900 acres will allocate 900 acres towards the development and construction of Spaceport Colorado and ancillary facilities. The next steps are the completion of an environmental assessment, and feasibility and marketing study. This is expected to be completed by end of 2013.

In the 1995–96 I was Head of Corporate Planning at Westport, a $1 billion seaport infrastructure project in Malaysia, where I created and deployed the 7-hour port strategy, streamlined financial controls, container handling and container tariffs, reducing incoming (wharf to gate) dwell time to zero hours compared to the then world’s largest container port, Port Authority of Singapore’s (PSA) 18-hours. Westport was able to grow substantially, to the point where, in 2011, Westport handled 6.4 million TEUs compared to PSA’s 29.9 million TEUs. (TEU = Twenty-foot Equivalent Units or half a container)

So it caught my attention when Dennis Heap said Spaceport Colorado will be 33 miles (53 km) east of the city of Denver and about 6 miles (10 km) south of Denver International Airport (DIA).

DIA is the 5th busiest airport in the US, and the 11th busiest airport in the world. It is located centrally in the continental United States. Read more about DIA here. The plan is to build a rail link between DIA and the Spaceport.

Denver is the second largest city after Phoenix, AZ, in the Mountain States (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, & Wyoming). It is the 23rd most populous city in the United States. Read more about Denver here.

After our visit with Dennis Heap, I took some photos of the Front Range Airport.

This photo above is of the view of the left side of the runway. In this photo you can see a white smudge just above the fourth plane (from the right). That white smudge is the Denver International Airport. The blue and white streak above ground on the horizon (left to middle of photo) is the majestic snowcapped Rocky Mountains. The city of Denver would be 33 miles (53 km) left or west of the Front Range Airport.

You can see from this picture that the Front Range Airport is a general aviation airport. That white smudge above the first plane (from the left) is the Denver International Airport. Note the clear blue skies. Colorado is the sunniest state in the US with more sunny days than even Hawaii.

This photo above was of the view to the right of the runway. Terminal building and offices are on the right of this photo. And if I have my bearing right, when built, Spaceport Colorado will be visible on the horizon.

I must congratulate Dennis Heap, Front Range Airport, and the many people, county and state officials and private companies who made this a reality. Public and private sectors cooperating to make things happen today. Real people doing real things to get into space sooner rather than later.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.