Mid-afternoon. You just
finished a Subway picnic lunch, stopping at Subway for chips and splitting a
foot long honey oat breaded turkey and ham sandwich, stopping across the street
for two McD dollar drinks and then heading to the far north lot of Pine Hill
Lakes Park where you are facing west. The clouds and cold have come in, most of
the trees on the hill have lost their leaves which leaves the area somewhat
shadowy and spooky-like. Carol is on page 181 of Lee Child's Night School.
Earlier today you both were out raking and bagging mostly large oak leaves. The
bags will be picked up Monday morning with the trash and recycle but separate.
Earlier today your cousin, Dr. Jimmy S. sent you a note about 'why there have not
been any moon landings since 1972'. The focus of the 'video article' was on a possible
alien base on the other side of the moon. It seemed outlandish so you checked
and found others online had similar theories. - Amorella
1543 hours. Still hogwash to
me; however, the question popped up as to why the Russians and Chinese have not
sent any ships or set a base up on the Moon themselves. NASA says it doesn't
have the money but since the Russians and we have been cooperating with the
space station, why haven't we had any cooperating on going to the Moon? All the
talk seems to be Musk-oriented and related on going to Mars. It is odd that
countries haven't jointly built a Moon base. Dr. Jimmy is trying to rile me up
with 'aliens' but studying 'consciousness/awareness' is presently more
interesting.
** **
Colonization
of the Moon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The colonization of the Moon is a proposed establishment
of permanent human communities or robotic industries on the Moon.
Discovery of lunar water at the lunar poles by Chandrayaan-1 has
renewed interest in the Moon. Polar colonies could also avoid the problem of
long lunar nights – about 354 hours, a little more than two weeks – and take
advantage of the Sun continuously, at least during the local summer (there is
no data for the winter yet)
Permanent human habitation on a planetary body other than the
Earth is one of science fiction's most prevalent themes. As technology has
advanced, and concerns about the future of humanity on Earth have increased,
the argument that space colonization as an achievable and worthwhile goal has
gained momentum. Because of its proximity to Earth, the Moon has been seen as
the most obvious natural expansion after Earth. There are also various projects
in near future by space tourism startup companies for tourism on the Moon.
Advantages and disadvantages
Placing
a colony on a natural body would provide an ample source of material for
construction and other uses in space, including shielding from cosmic
radiation. The energy required to send objects from the Moon to space is much
less than from Earth to space. This could allow the Moon to serve as a source
of construction materials within cis-lunar space. Rockets launched from the
Moon would require less locally produced propellant than rockets launched from
Earth. Some proposals include using electric acceleration devices (mass
drivers) to propel objects off the Moon without building rockets. Others have
proposed momentum exchange tethers (see below). Furthermore, the Moon does have
some gravity, which experience to date indicates may be vital for fetal
development and long-term human health. Whether the Moon's gravity (roughly one
sixth of Earth's) is adequate for this purpose, however, is uncertain.
In
addition, the Moon is the closest large body in the Solar System to Earth. While some Earth-crosser
asteroids occasionally pass
closer, the Moon's distance is consistently within a small range close to
384,400 km. This proximity has
several advantages:
·
A lunar base could be
a site for launching rockets with locally manufactured fuel to distant planets
such as Mars. Launching rockets from the Moon would be easier than from Earth
because the Moon's gravity is lower, requiring a lower escape velocity. A lower
escape velocity would require less propellant, but there is no guarantee that
less propellant would cost less money than that required to launch from Earth.
Asteroid mining, however, may prove useful in lowering various costs accrued
during the construction and management of a lunar base and its activities.
·
·
The energy required to
send objects from Earth to the Moon is lower than for most other bodies.
·
·
Transit time is short.
The Apollo astronauts made the trip in three days and future technologies could
improve on this time.
·
·
The short transit time
would also allow emergency supplies to quickly reach a Moon colony from Earth,
or allow a human crew to evacuate relatively quickly from the Moon to Earth in
case of emergency. This could be an important consideration when establishing
the first human colony.
·
·
If the Moon were
colonized then it could be tested if humans can survive in low gravity. Those
results could be utilized for a viable Mars colony as well.
·
·
The round trip
communication delay to Earth is less than three seconds, allowing near-normal
voice and video conversation, and allowing some kinds of remote control of
machines from Earth that are not possible for any other celestial body. The
delay for other Solar System bodies is minutes or hours; for example, round
trip communication time between Earth and Mars ranges from about eight to forty
minutes. This, again, could be particularly valuable in an early colony, where
life-threatening problems requiring Earth's assistance could occur.
·
·
On the Lunar near
side, the Earth appears large and is always visible as an object 60 times
brighter than the Moon appears from Earth, unlike more distant locations where
the Earth would be seen merely as a star-like object, much as the planets
appear from Earth. As a result, a Lunar colony might feel less remote to humans
living there.
·
·
Building observatory
facilities on the Moon from lunar materials allows many of the benefits of
space based facilities without the need to launch these into space. The lunar
soil, although it poses a problem for any moving parts of telescopes, can be
mixed with carbon nanotubes and epoxies in
the construction of mirrors up to 50 meters in diameter. It is relatively nearby; astronomical
seeing is not a concern; certain craters near the poles are permanently dark
and cold, and thus especially useful for infrared telescopes; in and radio
telescopes on the far side would
be shielded from the radio chatter of Earth. A
lunar zenith telescope can be
made cheaply with ionic liquid.
·
·
A farm at the Lunar
North Pole could provide eight hours of sunlight per day during the local
summer by rotating crops in and out of the sunlight which is continuous for the
entire summer. A beneficial temperature, radiation protection, insects for
pollination, and all other plant needs could be artificially provided during
the local summer for a cost. One estimate suggested a 0.5 hectare space farm could feed 100 people.
There are several disadvantages to the
Moon as a colony site:
·
The long lunar night
would impede reliance on solar power and require that a colony exposed to the
sunlit equatorial surface be designed to withstand large temperature extremes
(about 95 K (−178.2 °C) to about 400 K (127 °C)). An
exception to this restriction are the so-called "peaks of eternal
light" located at the Lunar north pole that are constantly bathed in
sunlight. The rim of Shackleton Crater, towards the Lunar south pole, also has
a near-constant solar illumination. Other areas near the poles that get light
most of the time could be linked in a power grid. The temperature 1 meter below
the surface of the Moon is estimated to be near constant over the period of a
month varying with latitude from near 220 K (−53 °C) at the equator
to near 150 K (−123 °C) at the poles.
·
·
The Moon is highly
depleted in volatile elements,
such as nitrogen and hydrogen. Carbon, which forms volatile oxides, is also
depleted. A number of robot probes including Lunar Prospector gathered evidence of hydrogen
generally in the Moon's crust consistent with what would be expected from solar
wind, and higher concentrations near the poles.
·
·
There
had been some disagreement whether the hydrogen must necessarily be in the form
of water. The mission of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) proved in 2009 that there is
water on the Moon.
·
·
This water exists in
ice form perhaps mixed in small crystals in the regoltih in a colder landscape than people have
ever mined. Other volatiles containing carbon and nitrogen were found in the
same cold trap as ice.
·
·
If no sufficient means
is found for recovering these volatiles on the Moon, they would need to be
imported from some other source to support life and industrial processes.
Volatiles would need to be stringently recycled.
·
·
This would limit the
colony's rate of growth and keep it dependent on imports. The transportation
cost of importing volatiles from Earth could be reduced by constructing the
upper stage of supply ships using materials high in volatiles, such as carbon
fiber and plastics. The 2006
announcement by the Keck Observatory that
the binary Trojan asteroid 617 Patroclus, and
possibly large numbers of other Trojan objects in Jupiter's orbit, are likely
composed of water ice, with a layer of dust, and the hypothesized large amounts
of water ice on the closer, main-belt asteroid 1 Ceres, suggest that importing
volatiles from this region via the Interplanetary Transport Network may be practical in the not-so-distant
future. However, these possibilities are dependent on complicated and expensive
resource utilization from the mid to outer Solar System, which is not likely to
become available to a Moon colony for a significant period of time.
·
·
It is uncertain
whether the low (one-sixth g) gravity
on the Moon is strong enough to prevent detrimental effects to human health in
the long term. Exposure to weightlessness over
month-long periods has been demonstrated to cause deterioration of
physiological systems, such as loss of bone and muscle mass and a depressed
immune system. Similar effects could occur in a low-gravity environment,
although virtually all research into the health effects of low gravity has been
limited to zero gravity.
·
·
The lack of a
substantial atmosphere for
insulation results in temperature extremes and makes the Moon's surface
conditions somewhat like a deep space vacuum. It
also leaves the Lunar surface exposed to half as much radiation as in
interplanetary space (with the other half blocked by the Moon itself underneath
the colony), raising the issues of the health threat from cosmic rays and the
risk of proton exposure from the solar wind. Lunar rubble can protect living quarters from
cosmic rays. Shielding against
solar flares during expeditions
outside is more problematic.
·
·
When the Moon passes
through the magnetotail of the
Earth, the plasma sheet whips across its surface. Electrons crash into the Moon
and are released again by UV photons on the day side but build up voltages on
the dark side. This causes a negative charge build up from −200 V to
−1000 V.
·
·
The lack of an
atmosphere increases the chances of the colony being hit by meteors. Even small
pebbles and dust (micrometeoroids) have the potential to damage or destroy
insufficiently protected structures.
·
·
Moon dust is an
extremely abrasive glassy substance formed by micrometeorites and unrounded due
to the lack of weathering. It sticks to everything, can damage equipment, and
it may be toxic.
·
·
Growing crops on the
Moon faces many difficult challenges due to the long lunar night
(354 hours), extreme variation in surface temperature, exposure to solar
flares, nitrogen-poor soil, and lack of insects for pollination. Due to the
lack of any atmosphere on the Moon, plants would need to be grown in sealed
chambers, though experiments have shown that plants can thrive at pressures
much lower than those on Earth. The
use of electric lighting to compensate for the 354-hour night might be
difficult: a single acre of plants on Earth enjoys a peak 4 megawatts of
sunlight power at noon.
·
·
Experiments conducted
by the Soviet space program in the 1970s suggest it is possible to grow
conventional crops with the 354-hour light, 354-hour dark cycle. A variety of
concepts for lunar agriculture have been proposed including the use of minimal
artificial light to maintain plants during the night and the use of fast
growing crops that might be started as seedlings with artificial light and be
harvestable at the end of one Lunar day.
·
·
One of the less
obvious difficulties lies not with the Moon itself but rather with the
political and national interests of the nations engaged in colonization.
Assuming that colonization efforts were able to overcome the difficulties
outlined above – there would likely be issues regarding the rights of nations
and their colonies to exploit resources on the lunar surface, to stake
territorial claims and other issues of sovereignty which would have to be agreed
upon before one or more nations established a permanent presence on the Moon.
The ongoing negotiations and debate regarding the Antarctic is a good case study for prospective
lunar colonization efforts in that it highlights the numerous pitfalls of
developing/inhabiting a location that is subject to the claims of multiple
sovereign nations.
Selected and edited from Wikipedia
- Colonization of the Moon
** **
1709 hours. The above certainly shows
the advantages and problems associated with a establishing and maintaining a
lunar colony although I like my fictional aliens' idea of using the Earth Moon
as a correctional colony, i.e. prison where given the continual wherewithal to
survive the prisoners (the worst on the planet) survive there for a good part
or the rest of their lives, where they can see the Earth and are free in a
sense, (no jail cells) but must forever see the Earth as it is from afar.
Our fictional marsupial friends were trying
to be helpful, but also realize earthlings have a problem taking advice and/or
orders from others let alone humanoid aliens such as themselves. It is best
they stay confined in word form somewhat disguised in a simple unorthodox
self-published format. Post. - Amorella
Last night you were glancing through Quora DOT com and came across this
piece that also brings a sense of humor to you. Here is the question: -
Amorella
** **
From Quora:
If a particle exists that can exceed
the speed of light, would we be able to detect it?
[Answered by]
Richard Muller, Prof.
Physics UC Berkeley, author "Physics for Future Presidents"
Updated Aug 22 ·
Upvoted by Daniel Merthe, Physics Ph.D. Candidate,
University of Southern California and Dimosthenis E. Gkotsis, Ph.D Physics, National Kapodistrian University of Athens (2019)
|
That depends on whether we have free will. In my book Now The
Physics of Time, I discuss the “Tachyon Murder”. If a bullet travels faster
than the speed of light (that is, it is called a “tachyon”) then there is a
reference frame in which the bullet arrives before the trigger is pulled. That
is not a contradiction if the person who pulls the trigger has no choice but to
pull. But it means that that person cannot change his/her mind. In other words,
interacting tachyons don’t violate the laws of physics, but they are
incompatible with the concept of free will.
If free will exists, then tachyons can indeed “exist” but they
could not interact with real matter. That means that they don’t “exist” in the
usual sense.
Selected and edited from - Quora dot com
** **
1759 hours. This is really good theoretical stuff. I
love reading material like this. I don't believe I have ever thought of 'free
will' in this sort of context before. Makes my day pondering such concepts. :-)
2202 hours. I was curious about the last line in the article:
"That means that they don't 'exist' in the usual sense". I was not
sure what "the usual sense" means in context. I checked online and I
find the same words used in a taped speech by Dr. Joseph Incandela, a professor
of physics at the University of California Santa Barbara.
** **
U. S. Department of Energy
Science Lecture: Talking
the Higgs Boson with Dr. Joseph Incandela
Speakers:
Dr. Joseph Incandela,
Steven Chu, Dr. W. F. Brinkman
Topic:
Innovation
. . . Now, while developing this fundamental theorem – theory of fundamental forces and interactions, physicists hit a snag – and this is what Secretary Chu was talking about – but the particles that carry forces had to be massless, but the data seemed to say otherwise, OK? We see – we see that the force – the weak force was very short-range. And in fact, why do any particles have mass, and what is mass? We didn’t have any way to explain this. Now, massless particles move at the speed of light. The speed of light, as you know, is 186,000 miles per second. We know that energy is related to mass, so if a particle has mass M, its rest energy is MC squared, but if a particle has momentum P – this is the actual formula that you use, from Einstein’s equations – and so if a particle has no mass, there’s still this piece left over. The energy is equal to momentum times the speed of light. And this is the equation, basically, for a particle moving at the speed of light.
So there was an ingenious idea that came along. Suppose there’s a force field filling the universe that somehow slows particles down to below the speed of light. This would make them have mass, and that was basically what this Higgs field introduction was to be. So here’s kind of a graphical representation of this. Particles are moving through the universe through the vacuum – we call it a vacuum – and there’s a field, there’s this Higgs field that permeates the entire universe, and some particles interact with it more than others. And the more they try to increase their momentum, the more they interact. Other particles don’t interact. The photon, for instance, doesn’t see this at all, but all the other particles that have mass, all the fundamental particles, interact with this field, and it slows them down.
OK. Is it a field or a particle? Fields have very small packets of energies associated with them called quanta, as Secretary Chu mentioned. Elementary particles interact by exchange of field quanta. So here I show, for instance, the exchange of a photon for the repulsion of two electrons, OK? This is not so hard to believe, OK. But it gets a bit more counterintuitive with more complicated processes. In fact, it gets very, very, very, counterintuitive. So, OK – I already told you that E equals MC squared. Now it turns out that a particle and an anti-particle could just pop out of empty space and then return. We call this the vacuum – and this is a vacuum fluctuation – and then vanish again, OK?
These are virtual particles, and it’s a very important part of the universe. It has very far-reaching consequences. The structure of the universe actually depends on particles that don’t exist in the usual sense but did when the universe was very hot and very young. And in some sense, this is the reason we do what we do. We’re trying to understand what particles could exist because they actually have an impact on the structure of the universe and particles that do exist that we use and see. . . .
Selected and edited from -- https://energy DOT gov/videos/science-lecture-talking-higgs-boson-dr-joseph-incandela
** **
And, boy, with the
underlined words in a more personal-to-you analogy: you are trying to
understand the strand of universal-like consciousness that exists in life and
in human beings and the impact it has had on the structure of humanity in the
universe that exists today? - Amorella
2217 hours. Thank you for developing
the placement of immediate words above for me. This is interesting and it is a
ruse to a greater interest to develop a better question about how [human] consciousness
(universal or not) has affected the Earth. Is consciousness used as a seed or
is it as a fertilizer in the evolution and distribution of life? (2222)
Post. - Amorella
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