Peer-to-Peer Science
The Century-Long Challenge to Respond to Fukushima
Emanuel Pastreich (Director)
Layne Hartsell (Research Fellow)
Continue reading “Peer-to-Peer Science: The Century-Long Challenge to Respond to Fukushima” »
News this past week on Fukushima has not been exactly reassuring has it. Meanwhile the pro-Nuclear lobby keep counting bananas. Here I’ve gathered together some of the recent news articles on the unfolding crisis. Interested to hear some comments on this one.
Fukushima leak is ‘much worse than we were led to believe’ / Aug 22, 2013, BBC NEWS http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23779561
Serious: Japan hikes Fukushima radiation danger level / August 21, 2013 RT NEWS http://rt.com/news/japan-fukushima-level-three-762/
Japan’s nuclear crisis deepens, China expresses ‘shock’ / Aug 21, 2013/ reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/us-japan-fukushima…2B20130821
Worse than Chernobyl: The inner threat of Fukushima crisis / Aug 20, 2013/ RT http://rt.com/op-edge/chernobyl-fukushima-crisis-catastrophe-715/
Japan nuclear agency upgrades Fukushima alert level / Aug 21, 2013 / BBC NEWS http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23776345
Fukushima apocalypse: Years of ‘duct tape fixes’ could result in ‘millions of deaths’ / Aug 18 2013 / RT http://rt.com/news/fukushima-apocalypse-fuel-removal-598/
Fukushima’s Radioactive Water Leak: What You Should Know / National Geographic, Aug 2013 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/08/13080…ater-leak/
The APS April Meeting 2013, Vol. 58 #4 will be held Saturday–Tuesday, April 13–16, 2013; Denver, Colorado.
I am very pleased to announce that my abstract was accepted and I will be presenting “Empirical Evidence Suggest A Need For A Different Gravitational Theory” at this prestigious conference.
For those of you who can make it to Denver, April 13–16, and are interested in alternative gravitational theories, lets meet up.
I am especially interested in physicists and engineers who have the funding to test gravity modification technologies, proposed in my book An Introduction to Gravity Modification.
Continue reading “American Physical Society (APS) Conference in Denver” »
Fukushima’s Second Anniversary…
Two years ago the international robot dorkosphere was stunned when, in the aftermath of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster, there were no domestically produced robots in Japan ready to jump into the death-to-all-mammals radiation contamination situation at the down-melting Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
…and Japan is Hard at Work.
Suffice it to say, when Japan finds out its robots aren’t good enough — JAPAN RESPONDS! For more on how Japan has and is addressing the situation, have a jump on over to AkihabaraNews.com.
Oh, and here’s some awesome stuff sourced from the TheRobotReport.com:
Larger Image - PDF With Links
1. Thou shalt first guard the Earth and preserve humanity.
Impact deflection and survival colonies hold the moral high ground above all other calls on public funds.
2. Thou shalt go into space with heavy lift rockets with hydrogen upper stages and not go extinct.
I continue to survey the available technology applicable to spaceflight and there is little change.
The remarkable near impact and NEO on the same day seems to fly in the face of the experts quoting a probability of such coincidence being low on the scale of millenium. A recent exchange on a blog has given me the idea that perhaps crude is better. A much faster approach to a nuclear propelled spaceship might be more appropriate.
Unknown to the public there is such a thing as unobtanium. It carries the country name of my birth; Americium.
A certain form of Americium is ideal for a type of nuclear solid fuel rocket. Called a Fission Fragment Rocket, it is straight out of a 1950’s movie with massive thrust at the limit of human G-tolerance. Such a rocket produces large amounts of irradiated material and cannot be fired inside, near, or at the Earth’s magnetic field. The Moon is the place to assemble, test, and launch any nuclear mission.
Continue reading “Petition for Americium Emergency Stockpile” »
LEFT: Activelink Power Loader Light — RIGHT: The Latest HAL Suit
New Japanese Exoskeleton Pushing into HAL’s (potential) Marketshare
We of the robot/technology nerd demo are well aware of the non-ironically, ironically named HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) exoskeletal suit developed by Professor Yoshiyuki Sankai’s also totally not meta-ironically named Cyberdyne, Inc. Since its 2004 founding in Tsukuba City, just north of the Tokyo metro area, Cyberdyne has developed and iteratively refined the force-amplifying exoskeletal suit, and through the HAL FIT venture, they’ve also created a legs-only force resistance rehabilitation & training platform.
Joining HAL and a few similar projects here in Japan (notably Toyota’s & Honda’s) is Kansai based & Panasonic-owned Activelink’s new Power Loader Light (PLL). Activelink has developed various human force amplification systems since 2003, and this latest version of the Loader looks a lot less like its big brother the walking forklift, and a lot more like the bottom half & power pack of a HAL suit. Activelink intends to connect an upper body unit, and if successful, will become HAL’s only real competition here in Japan.
And for what?
Well, along with general human force amplification and/or rehab, this:
I was recently accused on another blog of repeating a defeatist mantra.
My “mantra” has always been WE CAN GO NOW. The solutions are crystal clear to anyone who takes a survey of the available technology. What blinds people is their unwillingness to accept the cost of making it happen.
There is no cheap.
Paul Gilster comments on his blog Centauri Dreams, concerning Radiation, Alzheimer’s Disease and Fermi;
“Neurological damage from human missions to deep space — and the study goes no further than the relatively close Mars — would obviously affect our planning and create serious payload constraints given the need for what might have to be massive shielding.”
I recently posted this on the only two other sites that will allow me to express my opinions;
I see the problem as one of self similarity; trying to go cheap being the downfall of all these schemes to work around human physiology.
When I first became interested in space travel several years ago I would comment on a couple blogs and find myself constantly arguing with private space proponents- and saying over and over again, “there is no cheap.” I was finally excommunicated from that bunch and banned from posting. They would start calling me an idiot and other insults and when I tried to return the favor the moderator would block my replies. The person who runs those two sites works for a firm promoting space tourism- go figure.
The problem is that while the aerospace industry made some money off the space program as an outgrowth of the military industrial complex, it soon became clear that spaceships are hard money- they have to work. The example of this is the outrage over the Apollo 1 fire and subsequent oversight of contractors- a practice which disappeared after Apollo and resulted in the Space Shuttle being such a poor design. A portion of the shuttle development money reportedly went under the table into the B-1 bomber program; how much we will never know. Swing wings are not easy to build which is why you do not see it anymore; cuts into profits.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121231180632.htm
Excerpt: “Galactic cosmic radiation poses a significant threat to future astronauts,” said M. Kerry O’Banion, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy and the senior author of the study. “The possibility that radiation exposure in space may give rise to health problems such as cancer has long been recognized. However, this study shows for the first time that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a mission to Mars could produce cognitive problems and speed up changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.”
It appears when Eugene Parker wrote “Shielding Space Travelers” in 2006 he was right- and all the private space sycophants claiming radiation mitigation is trivial are wrong.
Only a massive water shield a minimum of 14 feet thick and massing 400 tons for a small capsule can shield human beings in deep space on long duration missions. And since a small capsule will not have sufficient space to keep a crew psychologically healthy on a multi-year journey it is likely such a shield will massive over a thousand tons.
News this past week on Fukushima has not been exactly reassuring has it. Meanwhile the pro-Nuclear lobby keep counting bananas. Here I’ve gathered together some of the recent news articles on the unfolding crisis. Interested to hear some comments on this one.
