A dream of space

One of the main drives for this blog is a dream. A vivid one. One of those dreams that works as a wake up call. In short, I dreamt that doubters (established scientists and government) literally one day had to wake up one morning looking up into the sky and see creative engineers, who did not care "what is possible", blasting off towards their dream: space.

After that dream I have been able to see these people in everyday life doing amazing things, everywhere, and struggling to be heard. And after writing my last blog entry, I realize, just I now realize how close this dream is to become reality. Scaled Composites is just one private initiative creating space crafts for human flight, right now! But other, even bolder initiatives, are currently testing their rockets for manned flight these days. In my own home country, Denmark, Copenhagen Suborbitals are getting ready to launch their first rocket (currently unmanned). They are quite serious about going to space. But the Suborbital group are ignoring/challenging at least two existing dogma of space travel: it has to be expensive and that it is difficult. I am fairly sure that more private or non-government projects launched by enthusiasts out there, wanting to reach for the sky no matter what.

If this happens, I think we will enter a new age. An age where people will (more readily) accept the impossible to spring from a garage (or a converted boat - as for the Copenhagen Suborbitals), rather than a billion dollar research institution. In my own mind I named this The Age of the Alchemists (has a nice ring to it).

Link: Interview with Copenhagen Suborbitals (in Danish)

World finest minds: our science is not superior

I decided to put up a list of quotes from alchemists/engineers/inventors/scientists who are all icons and fathers of the leaps that advanced our technical capabilities to where they are today. The point with these quotes is that is seems to me that intellectuals, including myself, seems to pass through 3 phases that come with age and accumulation of knowledge: idealism, scepticism, and wisdom. The first and last are open for imagination and boldness in the pursuit of the limits. The middle one, which is the dominant one today, prevails as "common sense" in most of us. The quotes below are from people who, in my opinion, has something to show for being labeled among "our world finest minds" - but aware that boundless minds and risking the impossible are required to reach for the sky.

“I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

“We build too many walls and not enough bridges.”

Isaac Newton, physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian


“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.”

“The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.”

Niels Bohr, physicist. Nobel Prize winner.


“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist. Nobel Prize winner


“We haven't got the money, so we've got to think!”

“If your result needs a statistician then you should design a better experiment”

"The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine." (great minds don't see everything)

"For Christ's sake, Soddy, don't call it transmutation. They'll have our heads off as alchemists."

Ernest Rutherford, the "father of nuclear physics", 1908 Nobel Prize winner


“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself.”

“Doubt is the father of invention.”

Galileo Galilei, physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher


“The man of science is a poor philosopher.”

“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.”

Arthur C. Clarke, inventor. Nobel Prize nominated.


“Breakthroughs are what define our species. They come about because we are threatened.”

“If you don't have a consensus that it's nonsense, you don't have a breakthrough.”

"Testing leads to failure, and failure leads to understanding.”

“We have a lot of openings for people...not just engineers, but people that can help us build research spaceships and production spaceships.”

“Our success proves without question that manned space flight does not require mammoth government expenditures...it can be done by a small company operating with limited resources and a few dozen dedicated employees.” (so "alchemists" launched into space)

Burt Rutan, legendary aerospace engineer, and driving force in Scaled Composities.

Open University, half way to Open Science

Open Science seems to be on the fast track. Several initiatives are now promoting university education for even the poorest in the world (Open University). If you have Internet and speak English, you can join. Distance teaching has been used for a long time in traditional universities, but now professionals specialists in their fields are spending their time and money to educate those who are willing, regardless of background. A neat idea if you believe that bringing education to the uneducated will help calming the world - I do.

I see Open University as one leg inside the traditional universities for the concept of Open Science. I hope that if the universities realize it is possible to convey teaching as an open media, the golden egg, science, may follow faster in the footsteps. In my opinion to the benefit of most, on the contrary to

Links:
Article in New York Times
Article in The Guardian
University of the People
Open Course Ware Consortium
Open University on iTunes

Further reading:

To Grid or not to Grid

I write a lot about renewable energy because it seems to attract inventors, engineers, and scientists alike. It thus is a good focus point for the paradoxes these problem solvers meet when trying to solve what seems to be in every ones interest (global warming, energy supply, pollution). The topic of this blog.

The New Scientists brought an article the 3rd of December 2008 on an increasing trend of people becoming independent of the power grid suppliers (How to unplug from the grid). More and more people apparently seems to dump the high cost of establishing new grid connections, or just sleep with clearer consciousness at night, and become self-sufficient with heat and electricity. I felt this myself as am building a house now. Just getting permission to use an existing connection to the house cost me over 1000 Euro ("connection fee"), and once again for using extra amps.

Prices are dropping and efficiency on equipment (sun cells/panels, wind mills, electricity storage devices etc.) is improving (see previous blog entries). It is becoming affordable and doable to replace outdated heating/power systems in your own home.
These days it seems that we, the people, are taking or demanding more and more independence at the same time the governments are tightening the control. Whether it is named "Web 2.0", "civil disobedience", "anarchists", "activists", "interest groups" or whatever - we are organizing and not waiting for our leaders to solve the problems. And the firms can smell the profits to be earned from this new movement. From my chair these changes in mindset is causing many clashes in our world today.

In our case of independence of the grid the conflict of interests, the paradox, seems to become apparent in the problem of producing too much energy as a private, independent, energy supplier. In Germany and the previous blog entry on Ota City, the private power generates are allowed to channel their excess electricity into the power grid, and take out electricity when unable to sustain themselves with power (see picture). The power grid functions as a "battery" so to say. Simple, easy to calculate, manage, and beneficial for all parts (the power company sets the prices). But it is very few countries who use this option. Why? Perhaps it the existence of a monopoly situation on energy supply as it is now. Letting go of some of this control may be difficult. However, it does not lead to non-fossil energy anytime soon if the power companies are expected to become "green" anytime soon. The companies has billions invested in power plants that are not easily rebuilt for new energy scources. So economically it is not rent able.

So, we can easily supply energy clean an efficiently from the sun or wind, but storing the electricity is a problem. The solution is simple, and already existing and working in places, but requires acceptance of power companies. Sad but true.

Perhaps we will see independent power suppliers organizing alternative grid networks in the future. Teslas wireless transfer of electricity is currently only use ind tooth brushes and art installations - but potentially could become a new grid network ("Change must come through the barrel of a gun").

Article in the New Scientist
Picture: http://www.greenlineenergy.com/solarbasics.shtml

Sun cells running a Japanese city

Sun power is the absolute largest known source of continous free power on earth, but we are currently quite bad at harvesting it.

The Danish news channel, Politiken, presented a news reel today (by Clavs Sylvest) on the Japanese Ota City that is being fully self sufficient in sun powered electricity.

This is a goverment sponsored program including about 500 homes. Each home has been given sun cells. The project is a national experiment testing how to avoid power cuts with the use of sun power. The house owners are allowed to sell the electricity back to the power compagny when producing excess electricity. This amounts to about 50 US dollars/month per house, on top of the electricity saved. However, sun cells are still expensive to produce and buy, and not using the electricity optimally due to reflection.

Good news though, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (US, also source of foto) has figured out how to coat the sun cells with tiny hairs that capture the otherwise reflected sunlight, much like hairs on a polar bear. The improvement allows the cells to harvest close to 100% of incoming rays, in contrast to about 67% now. So let us hope this will arrive on the market one day, that goverments will support people buying them, and that power compagnies will buy surpluss energy.

The video on Ota City can be watched here: http://politiken.tv/nyheder/udland/article597272.ece (in Danish)
The article on the new sun cells: http://ing.dk/artikel/92983-beklaed-nutidens-solceller-med-nanohaar-og-faa-50-procent-ekstra-energi (in Danish)

The Back Shed - Open Science in use

Looking for sources of information on initiatives that involved other people I entered The Back Shed. This website is very close to my idea of Open Science in practice. I will try to break down into parts how.

Summary: The Back Shed is a channel for "publishing" how a few windmill enthusiasts building effective windmills, improvements, and expansions, mostly from spare parts. But not only that - they involve others in projects through their website, and allow them to give ideas to solving problems - returning the result on the website.

Economy: The website use Goggles AdSense and thus gives a little project money in return for people using the listed suggestions for windmill parts by Google.

Blue prints: the site offer detailed, step by step instructions how to replicate their results.

Forum: An open forum for discussing various projects and concepts is present.

Control: The site is run and maintained by the group.

Alchemist or Scientists: These are enthusiasts, making improvements to industrial designs as well as from scrap. They supply technical information and prints, but the method is trail and error, not so much scientific. So though they are not green stamped representatives of intellectual property But they do make things work - cheap, easy, and better for anyone it seems.

Interactivity: The linkage to a global idea network is lacking.

Ultraviolet light in the environment of domestic animals as method of limiting infection with parasites eggs (a defensive publication)

What is a defensive publication? It is a publication of an idea, or method, that prevents other from claiming the intellectual rights to it (such as a patent), because the idea no longer is "original".

Background: Ultraviolet light (UV) is harmful to living organisms. Our atmosphere and clouds, protects us from the major exposure produced by the sun. Besides being burned by the rays, the light can also penetrate tissue, enter cells, and damage DNA ("nicking" it), making survival of organisms difficult (eg. skin-cancer). Basically, what it takes to kill or weaken an organism with UV-light depends on the intensity, exposure time, and the spectrum used of the light. The smaller the organism, the less UV-exposure necessary to kill it. This is well known, and is widely used in many fields as a sterilizing procedures. It is also applied to water borne parasites such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium with great success. UV-light is a natural limiting factor of egg shedding parasites, who in most cases require shade, moisture, and normal temperatures to develop and survive.

Parasite eggs: Many parasites, both protozoan (one celled) and helminths (worms), have a part of their life cycle outside the animal, either as a worm or egg. The success of a parasite depends on whether new animals pick up these eggs and get infected. Good hygiene can limit these eggs in the environment, but it is often difficult or neglected, especially in animal production.

Method: The novelty of this idea is to use UV-light directly on the environment (in the farm) of the animals (not on the animals), either killing or weakening the infection potential of parasites picked up from surfaces. The tool is simply identical to a flashlight with UV-light bulb of the right intensity, held over the surfaces the animal comes in contact with.

Limitations: UV-light does not penetrate deeply into for example faces on the ground. The effect is therefore limited to surfaces.

Extra benefits: Parasites with damaged DNA, will cause a weaker infection than normal, and possibly increase the chance of the animal acquiring immunity to it. Works on other free living pathogens too such as fungus, virus, and bacteria.

Warnings: UV-light is harmful to the eyes, and skin under longer exposures! Small amounts of ozone (O3) is created when using UV-light, but quickly (minutes) reconverts to oxygen (O2). Ozone creates radicals that could act on the environment. Realistically, in a place like a farm, with air flow, this most likely will not cause any problems.