Archive for October 3rd, 2012
Earth outer-space crowded with 17,000 space manned debris: And how Island of Man is contributing?
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 3, 2012
Earth outer-space crowded with 17,000 space manned debris: And how Island of Man is contributing?
In 2012, earth outer spaces, constituted of the suborbital (less than 2,000 km high), the Global Positioning System satellites (20,000 km up), and the TV and fixed telecommunication satellites (36,000 km)…is crowded with over 17,000 artificial debris, and not counting the natural debris of asteroids….
To make the situation worse, China destroyed in 2007 one of its satellites by missile, to be emulated by the US in 2008.
Only 7% of the orbiting space vehicles are operational. The remaining rotating debris are waiting for private space companies to collect them and ship them back to the polluters.
About 1,800 launching rockets are left as debris in space.
Over 3,000 are fragments of rockets
Over 4,000 are space vehicles
And more than 8,000 are parts of over 10 cm in length
There is a dividing region between earth and the Moon called Lagrange L1 point where space vehicle are not submitted to any force of attraction, and where gravity is nil…In this point the vehicle need minimal energy to be maintained there, an ideal point for “stationing” space vehicles. This point is closer to the Moon, about 1/6 of the distance from earth to the Moon, corresponding to the respective proportion of the masses of earth to the Moon…
Since equilibrium is unstable in L1, there are no debris (artificial or natural): Debris either fall to earth or on the Moon. Ken Murphy, president of The Moon Society, explains:
“As we reach the L1 point, space activities will dilate outward. The Moon will be a kid game to land on and to exploit…”
Naveen Jain, an ex-Microsoft billionaire, said:
“The Moon has 20 times more platinum and titanium than anywhere on earth. It has helium 3, a rare isotope estimated to be the future for energy. The Moon is going to be the 8th continent to earth…”
There are currently 23 missions to observing earth, and the projected numbers in 2020 will be reduced to about only 7 missions. Consequently, State funded missions are being phased out to be compensated by private space companies, companies heavily financed by State and Federal contracts, or public money…
For example, Space X of Elon Musk (PayPal founder) signed a contract for $1.6 bn in order to launch 12 missions for re-supplying the International Space Station of 450 kilo of materials and foodstuff, and bring back the wastes…
Space X has already successfully tested a first launch using Falcon 9 rocket (at a cost of $60 million compared to about $700 million by NASA for each launch). Most probably, this low-cost is a bait, waiting for the government to completely stop being a competitor in launching space vehicles and prices will skyrocket…
Orbital Sciences (Virginia) signed a similar contract with NASA
XCOR Aerospace of Richard Bronson is focused on the suborbital missions
Blue Origin is going for inhabited missions
Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace are planning for non-inhabited missions…
It is estimated that many wealthy people are ready to pay $200,000 to observe earth from the stratosphere. In the medium term, it is expected that the stratosphere, in a reduced gravity environment, will be used for quick transport from New York to Tokyo in just 2 hours.
And what of the Island of Man, situated between Ireland, Scotland and England? This Isle has 85,000 inhabitants and vying to be the preferred choice for launching commercial missions and inhabitant missions to the moon, at a cost of $20 million per client.
Of the 54 societies working on satellites, 30 have subsidiary on the island.
Christopher Stott, who worked for Lockheed Martin and Boeing, has decided to set his island into orbit, by reserving Space Parking Lots since the year 2000, in a private/public partnership ManSat. Stott has founded Excalibur Almaz for space tourism and acquiring second-hand Soviet station of the Salyut type.
Note: Inspired from an article in the French monthly Le Monde Diplomatic number 701 by Philippe Reviere
He doesn’t know it: Sargent Alcide communes with the angels…
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 3, 2012
He doesn’t know it: Sargent Alcide communes with angels…
This flat canoe lands me in Tobo, a town of 3 large thatched huts (in current State of Togo, Africa, a former French colony). The landing stage (embarcadero) was constructed with bamboo. The molluscs ate the bamboo every month and the landing was to be rebuilt…
You have the fat Lieutenant Grappa, Sargent Alcide and a dozen hired aboregenous militias from the environs.
Sargent Alcide’s voice of “Garde a vous” can be heard miles away, while the bare-feet militias arrange sacs of dirt and engage in assault maneuvers trying to steal the enemy flag…
Sargent Alcide has established a side trade of tobacco, cigarettes and alcohol in his hut. The militia “soldiers” learned to smoke their monthly pay on credit, gathered by Alcide’s hut.
Grappa was judge on Thursday morning. The black villagers would walk two days to attend these curious trials and lodge complaints…Grappa invited me to attend one of these sessions. An old man received 20 blows from a supple baton that would make a mule moo for 8 days. Why?
Grappa hates these sessions and has been discouraging the indigenes to come and save him these boring trials of same “harms done” and same complainants…And yet, they kept coming for the last 3 years, walking two days attend these sessions.
A young guy was to receive 50 whips last Thursday and did the disappearing act, because his third mother was sick…He arrived late after the session was over to get over with the punishment, but he was turned down, to return next week. He insisted of being beaten but was kicked out by the militia. He paid a quick visit to Alcide and bought what he needed…
One evening I needed to send a letter and knew that Alcide kept the materials in a tin box, the identical box used by all French Sargent. Alcide felt embarrassed and tried to delicately prevent me from opening the box.
He relented and I saw the head picture of a lovely little girl in the inside cover. Alcide was mumbling kinds of shy confidence behind my back. I could live without confidences.
Alcide went on” It is nothing. This is Ginette, the daughter of my brother. They are both dead. The father and mother…”
“And who is taking care of Ginette back in Bordeaux? Your mother?” I asked
“Oh. I am taking care of her. I arranged for Ginette to attend an expensive boarding school run by nuns…I don’t want Ginette to feel that she is a poor relative… She is ten by now and write to me occasionally. Do you think that taking piano is nice for girls? I want her to learn English too. What do you think of English?”
I said: “Do you visit Ginette when you go home on vacation?”
Alcide said: I don’t have the guts to go on any vacation before I retire properly. If I leave for vacation, Grappa will replace me and I’ll lose my side trade… Ginette had suffered from infantile paralysis in her left leg. A specialist is treating her with electricity. Do you think Ginette will recover? Does this disease recurs?”
Alcide was talking with extreme precaution as if he could harm Ginette from afar
I said: “She’ll be alright and back to normal”
Alcide has extended his stay in this rat hole for another 3 years, a place were people died from yellow fever and all kinds of diseases like flies, and every one, whites and blacks were all sick and barely functional…
Alcide was about to sleep as he said: “It is hard on little kids, having no one to share vacations with.”
Alcide was already snoring and I got up to observe his face up close. Alcide looked pretty ordinary. I never took seriously this guy and might have had a little contempt for him.that he project
It would be swell if we could judge correctly a person by simply capturing the signals that he projects in the first instant we meet him, just to be able to discriminate the bad and good guys…
Alcide to not know it: He is in communion with angels. And I felt such a little creep, an insignificant impotent louse, compared to Alcide sublime heart.
Alcide was enduring hell in that rat hole in Africa, annihilating his poor life, in this torrid monotony…He was sacrificing his life for a little girl, far away, to have the opportunity for a decent life…
Alcide must be conversing with familiar angels, but he doesn’t know it, and nothing to the matter.
Would this little girl appreciate the sacrifices that an uncle endured for enjoying a decent future?
Note: Inspired from a chapter in the French book “Voyage au bout de la nuit” by Ferdinand Celine
Adonis Diaries 