Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Has science taken a wrong turn? If so, what corrections are needed? Chronicles of scientific misbehavior. The role of heretic-pioneers and forbidden questions in the sciences. Is peer review working? The perverse "consensus of leading scientists." Good public relations versus good science.
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Brigit
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Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Unread post by Brigit » Wed Jan 19, 2022 7:29 pm

Electric Universe Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft subtopic: SpaceX, ceo

With respect to my take on the company/individual jackokie has brought up: My problem with this individual began with the abuses within the EV market, which I already pointed out.

42,000 satellites launched, at magnitude +4 - +7 per unit, would block out the stars in the night sky; also I hope it is not difficult to understand why many of us oppose the so-called internet-of-things -- or at least I hope jackokie, who brought up the IoT, will allow that there is nothing inevitable about it.

By the way, this proposed satellite system is not for the purpose of giving internet service to the poor in Africa. Among other things, it is for the penta gon and "national security".

But I also was alarmed by this same individual's claim to have placed a computer chip in a hog's brain, his advertising it as a brain-machine interface technology, and founding a company called Neura link.

I am not impressed by the promises of robots and high-speed underground tunnels. Those have fallen far far short of expectations (it's actually a one-lane 30 mph tunnel), and in my view, this individual's business model is to promise wild innovations and projects in order to gain investors. Even the EV cannot drive itself as advertised. --Which is what I would expect. It worked out well for me though, since I have no desire to share the road with self-driving vehicles. Personally, I don't think any one has a legal right to do that without state legislatures and voters agreeing to it and laying down a few rules.

Also, we need to be careful about making assertions about the inevitabiliy of a manned spaceflight to Mars. The number one objective of any such mission would be to get every single person back safely to earth. No one in the Apollo missions would have dreamed of not bringing our men and women home from the moon. But this individual you mentioned, who is making trademark wild claims of landing people on Mars within 5 years, has recently said that 'a bunch of people will probably die'.
https://www.space.com/elon-musk-mars-sp ... onauts-die

Finally, naturally we should not be surprised that he is in the business of selling unproven energy storage for wind and solar to governments. Recently the largest storage battery ever installed, the Tesla Megapack, caught fire in Australia.

A continuing problem with the EV and grid-scale lithium batteries is that they do spontaneously erupt into flames and the fires cannot be extinguished. Fire crews can only wait for them to go out.
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

jackokie
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Re: Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Unread post by jackokie » Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:19 pm

@Brigit Thank you for clarifying your issues with SpaceX's chief engineer and the companies he has spawned. I'll respond with a few bullet points:

1. For the record I think the Internet of Things is a terrible idea that will come back to bite us big time.

2. The chief engineer is not operating in a vacuum. The "green" lobby has convinced Congress and other legislative bodies around the world to offer substantial subsidies to move away from fossil fuels to "save the planet". Of course the so-called science behind this concern about fossil fuels is no better than that of the standard model. But many, many companies have taken advantage of these subsidies, so I don't think it's reasonable to expect one company to put itself at a competitive disadvantage by refusing the subsidy. The fire at the Victoria Big Battery in Geelong, Australia illustrates the hazards of Lithium-Ion batteries, but I believe this is a transitional technology and we’ll end up with something better. The Caribbean Petroleum Refining Tank Explosion and Fire in Puerto Rico in 2009 shows that our current setup is not free of hazard either.

3. In General Aviation, engine failure, particularly on takeoff, is responsible for many crashes and deaths each year. Electrical power for aircraft offers significant gains in redundancy and reliability. Energy storage technology isn’t quite there yet, but R&D in aluminum based batteries and hydrogen storage has us almost there. I believe EVs offer a significant gain in efficiency and simplicity over internal combustion engines. It's too bad they haven't been able to evolve at a natural pace rather than being force-fed to the public.

4. As a pilot I know that the autopilot does not make the aircraft "self-flying", any more than cruise control makes a car "self-driving". Whether one's hands are on the controls or not the pilot still has to maintain situational awareness. The original ideas for autonomous vehicles back in the day involved wires buried in the road and other dedicated things that equipment in the vehicle could sense to keep it on the road and safe. Now it's all in the vehicle, with different companies using different mixes of sensors, which I believe asks an awful lot from the technology. I think the push now for autonomous vehicles is really focused on commercial vehicles, especially long-haul trucking, where someone in a control room is monitoring in real time 10 or more trucks (o brave new world). Sooner or later there will likely be efforts to separate the autonomous traffic from the driven.

Several more EV companies besides Tesla are pursuing self-driving. I do think it's a step too far from cruise control, but I also think I'll be in more jeopardy from drunk drivers than self-driving cars for a while yet. I wonder if there’s any record of the number of buggies that crashed when the horse was spooked by a noisy horseless carriage.

5. The Boring Company so far has completed one loop for the Las Vegas Convention Center, and is in talks with Fort Lauderdale and San Antonio. The Las Vegas Convention Center recently hosted the 2022 CESS convention, and reported they were very happy with the performance of the loop.

The linked article below says Neuralink is ready to start clinical trials. From the article:
Neuralink wants to first use the device with people who have severe spinal cord injury to help them talk, type and move using their brain waves.

This seems like a noble goal to me.

https://www.wionews.com/technology/elon ... ans-446942

Of course there will probably be people with no deficits who want to be chipped. I suppose if someone is crazy enough, as the only occupant, to ride in the back seat of a self-driving car, they're likely crazy enough to let someone put a chip in their head for no reason.

(Continued)
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

jackokie
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Re: Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Unread post by jackokie » Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:48 pm

@Brigit (Continued)

6. Starlink and National Security: Having lived through the Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union, I firmly believe "si vis pacem, para bellum", or shorter "Peace Through Strength". After the USSR fell, more than one high-level official admitted that the Soviets recognized our military strength deterred them from getting too adventurous, especially with the Strategic Defense Initiative underway. Before WW 2 the US was ranked somewhere around 16th as a military power, which was a factor in Japanese calculations for war. These days, as a commenter on Quora put it
Since getting kicked around the Pacific for the first six months or so of WW2 by the Japanese and frustrated at not being able to do much to the Germans for the first year or two of the war, we’ve ever since tried to have a much larger peacetime military. Modern war technology means we can’t bank on six months to a year after the onset of a crisis or the declaration of war in order to recruit a few million new soldiers and start cranking out tanks, ships and planes.
If Starlink can contribute to our security I’m all for it. Teddy Roosevelt had it right: Speak softly and carry a big stick.

7. Walmart has driven countless mom & pop stores out of business. The airlines clobbered travel by train (which I personally prefer over traveling by airline). I have yet to see a credible metric of just how much of the sky Starlink's 42,000 satellites are expected to obscure. If I knew of any astronomers, amateur or professional, who were standing up for considering plasma cosmology / EU I might feel a little concern, but since there are none to speak of I won’t miss their gnome-ology. (For the latest contribution to gnome-ology see my comment to “And the gnomes go on, and the gnomes go on …” in the Electric Universe topics.)

The link below is to Casey Handmer’s blog entry titled “Science Upside for Starship”, which includes the following:
Probably the coolest telescope concept enabled by Starship, though, is the giant segmented telescope to end all giant segmented telescopes. An unmodified Starship can deliver perhaps a dozen 8 m monolithic hexagonal free-flying segments per launch to a target location such as L2, where they self assemble, calibrate, and then focus incoming light. Over a few dozen Starship flights, a truly enormous spherical mirror section perhaps 1000 m in diameter and with a focal length of 1000 km or so can be assembled behind a free-flying sun shade, pointed in a direction of general interest. In principle this mirror could be made almost arbitrarily large with quadratic marginal cost. Dozens of specialty instruments can then be launched to operate at target-specific foci, operating in an off-axis modality by default. Depending on choices about geometry, a single mirror could address O(10 degrees) of the sky at any one time. In the most extreme case a series of mirrors, possibly in a dodecahedral configuration, could enable simultaneous examination of the entire sky limited only by the number of secondary instruments.

I've attached an image of the proposed telescope but I can't confirm it's viewable.
The point Casey is making is that the chief engineer is changing the game, and a lot of people seem to be having problems giving up the old NASA paradigm and getting their minds around the never before available opportunities an industrial size space transportation system offers. From a comment on Casey Handler’s blog:
A year or so ago, I had an email conversation with Carolyn Porco where she became unhinged and ended, in a classy fashion, with the venerable old science lady instructing me to go eff myself. We had actually corresponded for over a decade prior and everything was perfectly civil up until that fateful day.
What made her unhinged? I asked her what she though of Starship and Elon’s Starkicker concept where a stripper-down starship-derived upper stage could be used, with refueling, to send 300 tons to the outer planets.
Apparently, she doesn’t care for the outer planets being opened up to us mere plebeians by Elon and is quite alarmed at the prospect.
She wants to be an outer but her mindset is that of an inner. Some Arthur C. Clarke comment about old scientists and the rate of progress comes to mind here.

Imagine what could be done with 300 tons of payload to the outer planets.

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021 ... -starship/

8. “The number one objective of any such mission would be to get every single person back safely to earth.” Perhaps if it were a NASA mission, but SpaceX’s mission is a one-way trip to colonize Mars. My great-grandfather was orphaned by the Civil War, taught school in Missouri at age 18, married one of his 15 year old students, and was an early settler in Oklahoma. He and my great-grandmother lived in a dugout house at first, but later had a farm where they raised their 12 children. And, after the state acquired some civilization, he was elected county treasurer. Pioneering is not glamorous or romantic, but in one form or another it is vital if a society is to remain healthy. The urge to see what’s over the next hill is the spark that ultimately led to civilization. The “safetyism” that has gripped this country over Covid is on the path to becoming afraid when it gets dark under the table; as you indicated in your post about the pandemic, you are already adversely affected by it. People die doing hazardous things; they die in bed. There will be more people wanting to sign up for the chief engineer’s Mars colony – healthy, competent people – than there will be space for them. And yes, people will almost certainly die. If they died while performing some dangerous stunt that would be foolish. If they die in service of the human race surviving an extinction-level event on Earth, their lives will have truly mattered.

Making humanity a multi-planet species has been the chief engineer's driving goal for many years, which is the point of his Mars colony; it is not some stunt on a grand scale. And note that SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company are all commercially successful in selling technology that will be essential for a viable Mars colony. Most people talk; the chief engineer acts. I'm willing to put up with a whole lot if humanity can be spared an extinction-level wipeout.
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

BeAChooser
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Re: Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Unread post by BeAChooser » Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:31 pm

jackokie wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:19 pm Of course the so-called science behind this concern about fossil fuels is no better than that of the standard model.
Oh, it's MUCH worse. The forks pushing AWGAlarmism and the Climate Change Crisis are outright lying about the facts in order to promote their cause(s) ... which are to put dictatorial political power in their hands, make themselves rich and make the world socialist/communist.

Enjoyed reading the rest of your two posts.

BeAChooser
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Re: Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Unread post by BeAChooser » Thu Jan 27, 2022 4:35 am

forks --> folks

jackokie
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Re: Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Unread post by jackokie » Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:08 pm

@BeAChooser Thanks for your kind words.

I dunno, "forks" might not be that far off, as in "trying to eat soup with a fork".
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

BeAChooser
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Re: Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Unread post by BeAChooser » Thu Jan 27, 2022 11:06 pm

jackokie wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:08 pm I dunno, "forks" might not be that far off, as in "trying to eat soup with a fork".
LOL! So true.

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orrery
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Re: Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Unread post by orrery » Wed Feb 09, 2022 8:44 pm

I advocate a simple heliospheric sensor network. Nothing fancy, just a network that might do nothing but monitor and measure heliomagnetic field strength or electron or proton flux, etc.
"though free to think and to act - we are held together like the stars - in firmament with ties inseparable - these ties cannot be seen but we can feel them - each of us is only part of a whole" -tesla

http://www.reddit.com/r/plasmaCosmology

jackokie
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Re: Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Unread post by jackokie » Sat Feb 12, 2022 5:32 pm

@orerry That is a reasonable approach that I hoped to see realized at some point after our initial set of cubesats had proved the concept. By far the biggest obstacle I see in getting there is funding: The choices are a. some agency or enterprise funds it or b. it is crowd-funded. Given the current state of science today, including cosmology, I see the odds of the first option happening as virtually zero. I'll list the obstacles to option a, but first some relevant quotes from Richard Feynman:

"Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question - to doubt - to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained."

"It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations."

"Progress in science comes when experiments contradict theory."

"The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth."

"The thing that doesn't fit is the thing that is most interesting."

So first of all, @orerry, ask yourself how today's standard model of cosmology, the "Big Bangers", measures up to Dr. Feynman's yardstick. They have not only rejected these principles, they have flung them down and danced on them. The way "science" is done these days leads to our difficulties:

1. Confirmation bias
One cannot measure everything, so at the very beginning the choice of which phenomena to investigate can lead to only looking at things which might support one's hypothesis, and ignoring those things that might not. Consider the Parker Solar Probe: Does it have all the types of sensors necessary to support EU theory, and is the data collected of sufficient granularity? I don't know, but I suspect not. If one ignores electricity in space there's not much point in investigating it, right? One would hope that if "The thing that doesn't fit is the thing that is most interesting." were true for the consensus group we would see some of the “unexpected” phenomena investigated, but they’ll spin hypotheses aplenty (the one for what NASA termed Saturn’s “bizarre six-sided hexagon feature present at the north pole” was a doozy) but nary an experiment.

2. Experiment design
I was impressed by the Safire Project's emphasis on their experiment's design; how structured a process they used. If we put a heliocentric sensor network in place, what are the requirements?
* How far out should the network extend?
* What is the best way to cover all of the volume enclosed in the network’s sphere?
* How do we optimize the probability that there will be a sensor nearby when something interesting is happening?
* Should the sensor platforms move around? If so, are the surveillance algorithms developed for Earth-bound applications useful?

3. Conformity
“It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It” – Upton Sinclair

Curiosity is now dangerous to one’s employment if one wants to bear the title “scientist”. To go against the Narrative is to be branded a member of a “small radical fringe” or even a "crackpot".

So I believe the only way to get this done is through crowd-funding and enlisting students at the high school and college level to participate in building the probes. In my initial survey I could not find any affordable way to get the delta-v necessary to place the probes in the required orbits; I recently came across Exolaunch, which has a number of products that might be feasible, but I don’t know their costs.

https://exolaunch.com/news-block-30.html

I may not be looking at all the options. If you have an idea for funding the network, sing out!

Edited for typo.
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

Tzero
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Re: Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Unread post by Tzero » Thu Feb 24, 2022 4:56 pm

Puting out press releases is a great idea! Weekly (or less if nothing new is happening) is a very effective method for boosting the awareness of an organization. And by consistent regular timing of PR releases, eventually some will be read and lead to much wider recognition of EU/PC. Press releases run about a page and a half, about 700 words in the correct format. Journalists scan PR releases on various sites as they are always looking for story ideas for their publication. And, the journalists who might pick up and craft a story are not limited to science publications but could be of interest to any in the entire range of magazines and websites of any genre.

I'd be willing to volunteer to help with this effort if EU/PC has a communications department, or help create one if needed.

I worked as a published writer for the top software companies over 12 years as an independent company. I collaborated with PR firms and directly with the likes of HP, Oracle, Seybold Reports, etc. and as a writer/analyst and editor for various trade publications.

The work included articles for publication, speech writing,, whitepapers, case studies and press releases for IT and computer science industry.

It would be wonderful to see the profile EU/PC rise to a level of familiarity throughout the general population. With relatively little effort, Press Releases that can spur news stories in the general press would help to realize that goal, raising a much wider general audience.

jackokie
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Re: Thunderbolts Fleet of Miniature Spacecraft

Unread post by jackokie » Thu Feb 24, 2022 10:17 pm

@Tzero Welcome to the Forum. I'm very glad to see your post; I've been wondering if it's really possible to address EU's lack of visibility. I've been trying to offer the EU perspective on some of the sites I visit; I try to challenge the received wisdom where I can. The February 15 Instapundit.com has an entry titled "THE SEX LIVES OF GALAXIES: Sublime New Hubble Image Reveals a Thrilling Exchange Between Two Galaxies." I posted a comment contrasting the standard model with Plasma Cosmology / EU theory, two links to Don Scott videos, and an image of a Birkeland current in space. I may be making progress; the comment actually got an upvote, and nobody called EU "drivel" as has happened in the past. If you'd look at my post I'd be grateful for your opinion as to whether it was worth the effort in that venue, or really any venue.

There are excellent videos on YouTube from Don Scott, Wal Thornhill, Stuart Talbott, Gareth Samuel, and Michael Clarage but I don't know how often they might talk to one another or if they coordinate their output. You may be the secret sauce that finally gets EU some notice. There are quite a few people who comment on those videos (some are luddites) but that's sort of a "pull" situation and a miniscule audience compared to the scope of standard model promotions. The "About" option on this site's main page has links for both Don Scott and Wal Thornhill. Wal's site has a "contact" option; the link for Dr. Scott's site isn't working at the moment - don't know why. I'll see if I can find out. If those two will agree to some kind of press operation I think the idea will fly. With your background you're sure to have a feel for when to put out a release and who should get it. I'll put my two cents in now: Despite the overall quality of EU publications, there are two aspects I believe are self-defeating:
1) EU ideas are often accompanied by criticism of mainstream astrophysics and astrophysicists. The criticism, IMO, is well deserved and I certainly sympathize with how frustrating it must be figuratively shunted off into a corner. However, I believe a straightforward presentation of the EU point of view will be better received and noticed. If a contrast between EU and the consensus explanation for something is needed, it should be a la Joe Friday - no criticism or complaints; just the facts.
2) There is evidence that past cosmic events were remembered in oral histories or recorded in images, and that this evidence is congruent with EU theory. As valid as this might be, human nature being what it is I believe this indirect evidence should be treated as a separate discipline and not comingled with EU physics, which after all has a hard enough time getting accepted.

I'll help you every way I can, and hopefully some other members of the forum will chime in. Please reply with how you see proceeding.
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

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