We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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If you’re going to bet, then always bet on a sure thing. Modest gains made on short odds are generally preferable to the large losses threatened by longer odds. It is with that philopsophy in mind that I comment upon the boondoggles of Brussels. I never expect anything good to emerge from the EU and I am seldom disappointed.
Back in April of this fast-fading year, I passed a few less-than-enthusiastic comments upon the EU plans for the launch of a European GPS system called ‘Galileo’ and during the course of which I made it clear that it might cause some transatlantic friction:
“There is some small chink of light at the end of this particular worm-hole, though. The US government has expressed concern that should Galileo become operational it could be used by terrorist cells to plan attacks on the US. Now, personally, I think that the Americans, the Russians, the Indians, the Israelis, the Australians, the Japanese and just about everybody else will have functioning colonies on Mars before that happens, but, in the event that it does, the US just might find itself in a position where they have to shoot the bloody thing out of the sky (chortle, snigger, stuff handkerchief in mouth). What a tragedy!!”
Now, there are some people who would charge that my cynicism is merely a reflection of my personal prejudice and they would be quite right. However, an article published in a US web-zine called ‘Space Equity’ has given me cause to believe that I might have been quite prescient. The article in question was published in October which renders it archaeological in blog terms but that didn’t prevent it from slapping me around the head like a wet sock:
“It is now evident that by reserving a frequency in close proximity to the frequency used by code M, the Europeans have put themselves in a position to veto the effective use of GPS by America’s armed forces. They believe that once they have begun transmitting on this frequency, the US will have no choice but to ask their permission before conducting any GPS supported military operations. This, in effect, means all US operations anywhere in the world. For example, in case of a North Korean attack, the US would have to ask the EU for permission before it could begin flying close air support missions against invading North Korean troops . This would give the EU enormous leverage whenever the EU wanted the US to concede something in the Middle East or elsewhere.”
Voila! Of course, I also postulated that ‘Galileo’ would prove to be nothing except a Eurocratic wet-dream, so perhaps the brass hats in the Pentagon should cool their heels. For now.
[My thanks to James C. Bennett for the link]
The Dnepr launch including the TransOrbital engineering test article for their coming Lunar Trailblazer vehicles has been orbited successfully. According to the Russian company’s news section:
“The third launch of SS-18 missile under Dnepr Program with a group of 6 spacecraft belonging to several customers was performed at Baikonur Cosmodrome on 20 December 2002 at 20-00.”
We can now look forward to a late 2003 attempt on the moon.
Trailblazer test article.
Courtesy TransOrbital
TransOrbital, a member of the Artemis Project, will soon carry out its’ first launch, an engineering mockup of their lunar probe. The vehicle is scheduled for launch into low earth orbit (LEO) tomorrow, Dec 20th, on a Russian Dnepr former-ICBM.
TransOrbital hopes to launch the first commercial lunar probe in late 2003.
From all of us at Samizdata: “Good luck and clear jets TO!”
More information is available here
The 2004 International Space Development Conference (ISDC) will be held in Oklahoma City. The ISDC is the annual National Space Society (NSS) conference. This is a direct inheritance from the L5 Society which began the conferences in Los Angelos in 1982.
The NSS Executive committee voted the final approved of the 2004 site candidate on Dec 12th. The 2003 conference is in Palo Alto, California this coming May. Please check out the web page for more information.
Just for the sake of full disclosure… I chair the committee that makes the location recommendations to the NSS Board of Directors, so I sort of knew this for a few weeks now.
The Ministry of Defense released a paper for public discussion (pdf) on missile defense today. Mr. Hoon would like the public debate on the issues to begin now because deployment will take many years here from the start of such discussion.
The media reports claim there is currently no threat. I was surprised not even Mr Hoon pointed out how even an existing short range ballistic missile can be fired from a tramp steamer outside of the UK territorial waters.
I hope to find some mention of this in the aforementioned document which I have not yet had a chance to read.
You may email your comments to the UK MoD on this subject at:
Missile-Defence@mod.gsi.gov.uk
Dec. 3, 2001 Prototype Kill Vehicle
launch from Mecklin Island.
Courtesy US DOD
Elon Musk, a South African internet entrepreneur made $300M on Zip2 and followed it up with $1.5B on PayPal.
His third company, set up in June this year, is SpaceX. He has done a clean sheet design start on a new vehicle aimed at cutting costs by two thirds. Falcon is targeted for launch by the end of 2003. Once operational, the two stage lox/kerosene Falcon will become the upper stages of a three stage heavy lifter.
He’s out to eat Boeing, Arianespace and Lockheed’s lunch.
Today’s Ballistic Missile interception test has been successful:
“The target was launched at 2:30 p.m. Hawaiian Standard Time (7:30 p.m. EST). The USS Lake Erie, equipped with Aegis BMD computer programs and equipment, developed a fire control solution without any external sensor inputs. Within two minutes after target launch the Aegis Weapon System fired the SM-3 guided missile. Approximately two minutes later, the missile’s kinetic warhead acquired, tracked and diverted into the target, demonstrating the Aegis BMD system’s capability to engage the ballistic missile target in the ascent phase. This was the third consecutive target intercept.”
I’d say we’re getting close to a North Korea sized ICBM solution.
NOTE: The available information does not specify the missile type intercepted, but I would guess it is more an IRBM than an ICBM in this test. I know very little about the Kaui Launch site so I can’t comment on what sort of pads/launchers they have. I’ll add more information when I receive it.
- Take a sheet of grey construction paper.
- Hold it over your head.
- Look up at it in a dark room.
That’s approximately what I can see from here. T’is a normal Irish night, so I’d also need slow wipers for my eyeballs.
I would just about see the glow from a dinosaur killer asteroid,.. if it passed directly overhead.
I was just reading an article about the “space parasol” idea. That’s the concept of placing a sunshade at the Earth-Sun L1 point1 to intercept perhaps 2% of the solar flux before it reaches Earth. This would counter the projected temperature changes on Earth due to a green-house effect.
It struck me there is more to it than that. It is known the Solar Constant2 has risen slowly over the aeons of our star’s life and will continue to do so. At some point in our distant future we will have no choice but to either move our planet further outwards, abandon it for a new home or build sunshades. The evolution of the solar system gives us absolutely no choice in the matter. We will be forced to take complete control of the energy balance of Earth or else we and all other life will be on our way to extinction.
I’m confident our “greens” will by then have mutated into “browns” who will believe we should allow events to run their natural course from parched bare rock to parched bare rock.
Whether we take up the reigns of control now or our descendant species do so millions of years from now is not relevant to the purpose of this article however. Somewhere in the Universe there are civilizations which have faced the choice already. Some of them will have chosen to control the stellar flux on their home world.
We have two methods of detecting extrasolar planets currently. One is by the doppler effect caused by a stars’ dance about the changing center of gravity of its’ planetary system; the other is by watching the light curve for dips due to planets passing across their star’s disk from our perspective.
It is quite possible for us to see doppler effects without seeing eclipses. It happens if the plane of the alien solar system is tilted with respect to us such that planets never pass directly between us and their star. This is the most likely scenario.
But what if we were to see the opposite effect? What if we see a significant dip in the light curve at predictable intervals and yet do not see any doppler effect?
I’ll expand on this for those who have not said “Aha!” yet.
It should take a fairly significant sized body to make a dip we detect: almost certainly one with a disk size from which we would infer a substantial, Jupiter class, mass. Such an object would almost certainly cause alternating redward and blueward doppler shifts of the stars spectral lines as it orbits the star. If that is not the case, we have an anomaly. An object in orbit about its’ star which is large enough to block substantial light and yet is very low mass relative to its’ size should strike one as very odd.
It could be a parasol built by intelligent life.
1 = Lagrange points are where the gravity between two bodies creates a “balance” point such the pull from each tends to keep the object where it is. The Earth-Sun L1 point is on a line directly between and a couple million miles inwards. You can either read about it or calculate it yourself.
2 = The Solar Constant is the average total energy flux at Earth orbit, currently about 1.37 kw/m^2 flat on to the Sun. It is reasonably constant over a human lifetime but is not constant in the long term. The Sun was hotter in its’ earliest years until it stabilized somewhat cooler than it is now. It has slowly grown hotter and will continue to do so for billions of years to come. Life will be impacted long before our star leaves the Main Sequence in the far future. At that time it will expand to red gianthood and will become large enough to absorb or at best turn Earth into an orbiting cinder.
The US DoD is studying whether to continue with its’ current broadband satellite systems or to move on to a global space laser com relay network. According to Undersecretary of the Air Force Peter Teets at a DoD News Briefing on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2002, they hope to be ready for a decision by December 2004:
“Just exactly that way. We will progress in the development of the laser comm. technology between now and 2004. In 2004, we will decide whether or not we have confidence enough to deploy — whether we have confidence enough to not procure AEHFs 4 and 5 and, rather, rely upon a high bandwidth relay network of some kind using some form of laser comm.”
They seem primarily interested in space-space links, but I predict usefulness for space-ground links as well. Laser links have many admirable characteristics for this if you can get the pointing right. They do not have the extensive sidelobes or wide footprint of radio signals1; they are difficult to jam2; they can carry enormously more data3; and left entirely unsaid at this briefing… they are amenable to quantum cryptography4.
Oh I just love the future!
1 = This makes it very difficult to intercept. Even tightly beamed microwaves have enough off axis signal to be read miles away as the Russians did in New England in the 80’s. They purchased an old country house as a diplomatic site, stuck up a bunch of antennas and started picking off White House and other phone calls. At that time the exchange number was part of a clear text header, easily filtered for out of the massive volume of long distance voice traffic. It goes without saying US ELINT sats can pick up the faint leakage of microwave links from orbit.
2 = Someone will certainly comment about the effect of fog, clouds etc. It is not as much of a problem as you think, and most especially for point to point orbital communications. Even on ground links, much depends on the frequency in use. Water vapour does not absorb at all frequencies.
3 = Think of live two way hiresolution video links between pilots in theatre and control centres elsewhere in the world; perhaps even holographic 3D heads up data displays. The possibilities are staggering.
4 = Even without encryption, quantum tricks lets them make sure undetected “man in the middle” attacks are literally impossible.
The laser testbed at White Sands has racked up yet another first. It has shot down an artillery shell in flight:
“This shootdown shifts the paradigm for defensive capabilities. We’ve shown that even an artillery projectile hurtling through the air at supersonic speed is no match for a laser,” said Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Cosumano, head of the missile defense command.
You can find out more about it here.
Tactical High Energy Laser Director.
Photo © TRW Inc. 2000. All Rights Reserved. Republished by kind permission of TRW Inc
It is with heavy heart I pass on the news of yet another death in the space activist community. Dr. Charles Sheffield, one of many Brit expats who chased the dream of space flight across the big pond died yesterday.
I have no photos of Charles,1 although I interacted with him on an almost daily basis in the mid eighties. I was “the Prez” of the Pittsburgh L5 Society chapter and ran a local and an international L5 Conference and other space events for which he came up from the Washington, DC area to attend, assist with and speak at. We both served on the board of directors of the L5 Society during that period, so I worked with him in that capacity as well. At times we felt like he was part of our crazy bunch of hard drinking, hard partying, Steeler and Penguin cheering Spacers at Pittsburgh L5.
He was one of those whose life was utterly dedicated to our goal of moving off planet. He worked on commercial satellites by day; he wrote great hard science fiction by night; in all his spare moments he was an L5 Society activist… and how he found time to also raise a family I have no idea.
Vaya con Dios, Ad Astra and “next year in L5” Charles.
1 = There might be 1987 photo’s of him here but I have not had time to look through them all.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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