Science page
I love Science. Quantum Physics fascinates me and eludes my understanding to this day. But I keep reading and trying to understand. On a simpler level, science can help overcome many seemingly difficult problems. Here is an old web page from my 2008 era for a start. You might look at my Old Site page for my Balloon Antenna and 2KAU ideas, until I get them updated here. A drawing is presented below the ad. 2 idea/questions.
1. On a different note, I would like to present a suggestion for the government to promote reclamation of water from the sea by giving seed money to Universities near the ocean such as UCSB, CA to research solar desalinization. Wave action could be used for pumping the water through pipes (possibly cement to retard corrosion) inland to the solar collectors. This would eliminate some objections to this scheme due to aesthetics (some do not think them beautiful). I will try to elaborate on this more later, but here is a quick and hopefully useful idea to do it your self solar and wave action desalinization
2. Another unusual proposal is to set up an Internet organization to coordinate the design, construction and building of a "Model T" robot that is really useful. Distributing the work load to the many enthusiast could keep the cost very low. Designing the parts MUST be standardized, modular, interchangeable, upgradeable, and for both software and hardware. Every robot project now starts from scratch so they all tend to be costly, long term and full of the same errors others made. ads here, then see Balloon...
1. On a different note, I would like to present a suggestion for the government to promote reclamation of water from the sea by giving seed money to Universities near the ocean such as UCSB, CA to research solar desalinization. Wave action could be used for pumping the water through pipes (possibly cement to retard corrosion) inland to the solar collectors. This would eliminate some objections to this scheme due to aesthetics (some do not think them beautiful). I will try to elaborate on this more later, but here is a quick and hopefully useful idea to do it your self solar and wave action desalinization
2. Another unusual proposal is to set up an Internet organization to coordinate the design, construction and building of a "Model T" robot that is really useful. Distributing the work load to the many enthusiast could keep the cost very low. Designing the parts MUST be standardized, modular, interchangeable, upgradeable, and for both software and hardware. Every robot project now starts from scratch so they all tend to be costly, long term and full of the same errors others made. ads here, then see Balloon...
Balloon Antenna Concept
3. This is a drawing of the Balloon Antenna Concept described in the old Site. You can read the old text until I update it here. I will point out the path of the incoming ray that hits the center of the antenna and bounces into the "floating receptor". This means that there can be multiple receptors, as shown, as long as they are not far off the central axis. Also note that the antenna is made of a simple hoop with the back metalized material for reflectance and the front clear. The shape is maintained by the gas pressure inside.
If the antenna was a kilometer in diameter, it would have enormous resolution and it could conceivably be made to reflect light and radio both, and so be multiple observatories in one, at radio and optical wave lengths.
Note also that the antenna could be put up around earth initially and possibly up to 3 more could be put into the deep space arrangement at the 4 corners of a pyramid. The distance between the antennas would be about 1000 AU (Astronomical Units, or Earth Sun Distance x 1000). With this arrangement the system would act like a telescope of 1000 AU size (but not sensitivity) for resolution. That would allow resolution of very fine details of nearby sources or bright sources farther away. with 4 equally spaced antennas, we would get full 360 degree aiming.
To send them, it may be possible to use the antennas as solar sails and also, if large lasers were able to be constructed, they could add significant push to the sales even when far from the sun.
4. An idea I had some time ago was if there are more dimensions than the 3 (or 4 including time) like some proposed theory's, then it seems to me the spooky action at a distance Einstein had trouble with could be explained by the entanglement "message" traveling via the very short distance around the curled up dimensions. And since all effects we know of (except entanglement) are sent by particles, we would only need to discover and perhaps tame them to have FTL communications and possible travel. Some thing for Phd research.
5. I think SpaceX made a mistake dropping support for the Crew Dragon powered landing. It will be 5 years before BFR is online and they had Crew Dragon almost done. It demoed hover and escape, etc. Maybe a year to be operational, at least for the unmanned version. With the powered landing, they can send men and supplies to the mood very quickly. Maybe 3 years. They could land on Mars where NASA can not any time soon. They can land on earth on land (or barge?). That could also validate fast transportation and tourists to space. NASA should look into funding the project back to life.
6. There is a project called Breakthrough Starshot that is a fantastic idea. Using lasers to push a "Sail" to the nearest star. I suggest here that theoptimum way to build this is using single sheer of graphite as the sail with the electronics of the control system "printed" (IE, doped) on it. Carbon nano tubes would probably give the lightest structure also. The sail should be partially a solar cell to capture the light energy for power and it is hoped it could also be used as an antenna if needed. It may be hard to transmit a signal back to earth. If the antenna idea works, it would be radio waves. If not, a laser will need to be carried so some research in printed laser on graphite might be needed. I wonder if we could make the sail change from reflexive to absorptive electronically to make a kind of Morse code blinking comm system (reflecting the laser light)?
When the craft gets over 80% of the way, little will be gained by more push so the Sails might be turned into antennas and possibly telescopes (if we can make the sail reflective electrically and warp the sail into a parabola).
These ideas mostly are pie in the sky and the tech is not ready yet. However, in 10 years it might. And printing the circuitry on the sail is not too out of reach as that is done now on some fabrics.
7. I have always wondered why the semiconductor industry saws the Silicon wafers instead of using the diamond technique. IE cleave the wafer. Some glass cutting techniques might be helpful too. For example applying a slight torque (pull) as you "cut". Perhaps using suction on the wafer as it is cleaved with a slight warp or twist.
The wafers are made as thin as they can be made but the saw is taking up a significant amout of expensive real estate. Also, even more is saved because they must polish off the rough spots but the cleaving leave a super smooth surface (in theory). Note that diamond cutters cleave a smooth surface bu cutting along a crystal axis.
Research on sound setting up vibrations in the crystal might be considered too. Lasers? A combination of multi techniques?
8. Black holes (BH). Suppose you have a spinning BH. If we assume the diameter is the Swartzchild Limit (SL), for the moment, if we add more spin (Angular Momentum) we will, at some point make the SL surface travel at the speed of light, thus limiting more added momentum. It is possible this view is too simplistic. The real dia. of BH is theoretically a point, IE much smaller then SL. Also, Like trying to fly FTL, more and more energy gives less added speed. Seems like angular momentum is just speed in a circle. Interesting, but lets explore further.
Suppose we start with a 2 Solar mass BH and try to spin it up. I dont see how adding charge might work. Similarly, I cant see how using an magnetic field would help (even if we could generate a big enough one). So adding angular momentum is the way to go. This requires adding mass in the correct manner to get angular momentum. It seems to me the BH could not be a point because there would be no angular momentum at all, because there is no radius'
"linear momentum (product of its mass m and linear velocity v) times the perpendicular distance r from the center of rotation"
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9. Suggestion for Boeing reusable space rocket.
Summary;Winged like Shuttle/X37/Airbus(proposed)/ULS(proposed) but using RAMJETs for powered return flight.
Advantages;
1 with a very small penalty in extra fuel, a direct one time approach (like Shuttle) can speed up or change course as needed
2 With a larger penalty, Go Around can be done making safer and more flexible landings.
3 with an even greater penalty, fly to almost any landing site.
4 the weight penalty for the RAMJET engines could be relieved by engaging them on ascent as well as landing. This might make it "payload lift penalty free", if it can give enough thrust to carry the engines and extra fuel.
5 only fuel is needed, no oxygen because (in the simplest case) the engines use oxy in air. This limits it to a couple minutes use. If a more complex engine that can meter oxy with the fuel, thrust can be continuous into orbit. This would give more flexibility of flight at much higher research cost.
6 The engines can be strapped on the side of the rocket making it look a bit like the old Atlas. 2,3,4 or more could be used.
7 The Airbus proposal has prop engines so very slow and pretty heavy. RamJETs are Very simple and light.
8. A major problem with RamJets is they need high speed to run but that is built in on a rocket at no cost.
10. Ultra-LHC. 25,000 mile diameter Collider.
If we want to make a large and powerful particle collider/smasher then we need to think big. BIG. I suggest one circiling the Earth. Before you laugh at the cost, let me make a few points.
1. In space, the temperature on the shade is low enough to run superconducting magnets with NO cooling. Sun screen.
2. The bending magnets do not need to be as powerful due to the very slight bend at each magnet.
3. While the launch costs are high, the operations cost may be less. Electricity from solar cells will power each magnet.
4. A large vacuum pipe is not needed as it is a better vacuum than we can make on earth for free.
5. We might be able to use smaller cheaper and fewer magnets for these reasons.
6. The potential increase in energy is just enormous and can start smallish with fewer magnets and upgraded.
7. Robotics is getting powerful enough (especially with remote control from Earth) to do assembly and maintenance.
8. Such a large repetitive structure should allow assembly line savings.
9. SpaceX launches are getting very cheap and with such a large project might get even cheaper. Then there is Starship.