Garden Party

Not a productive day writing for this blog.  Yet, I've got an audience here and I guess I am expected to produce something.  Earlier today, I went over to Facebook and noticed an old friend had written something that reminded me of a popular song in the early seventies.

It was written by Ricky Nelson, of Ozzie and Harriet fame.  The song was called "Garden Party".  The song is about what is popular and what isn't, and how, as an artist, do you respond to that?  Nelson's response was that you can't please everyone, so you've just got to please yourself.  Popularity can be an ephemeral thing.  Perhaps it's like what was once said that everyone is famous for about 15 minutes.  I don't remember who said that, it just seems to go with the thought.

Well, let's take inventory of what I want to do here.  I want to advance some ideas somehow, which will lead to solutions to certain problems that we are facing.  At the core of this is the energy problem.  This is so much a key to everything.  If you solve that, everything else seems to fall into place.  For instance, if you had fusion power, you can do single stage to orbit.  If you had single stage to orbit, space travel gets economical.  If space travel gets economical, everything opens up.  Not to mention that fusion power will also solve a lot of problems on the ground.  For example, if you had cheap abundant energy, you could desalinate water and make the deserts bloom.  If it sounds pie in the sky, it's only because fusion power doesn't yet exist.

 Another thing is fuel cells.  If you had space colonization, you can get platinum group metals.  Those could help with cost of fuel cells which in turn helps solve the liquid fuel problem.  This in turn solves a lot of economic and political problems.  If, If, If.  But it all starts with energy.  With it, you can do anything.  Without it, you can't do much.

So, I went on my Space Colonization page on Facebook and made a short note.  I said if I had 100k people liking my page, you could tell your local congresscritter about it, and it just might get his attention.  If you had his attention, maybe he would support funding fusion research at NASA.  This was discontinued years ago.  Why?  Because the tokomak research was said to be the most promising.   Why?  Because the tokomak people manage to get the most money.  Kind of a circular argument.  Fund them because they get the money.  Not fund them because tokomaks are better per se, just better at getting money.  Why are they better at getting money?  Because they are better at getting money.  Not solving problems, just getting money.

Here I am, six months into this, and I can't buy a readership.  Yet, if I am right about this stuff, it is worth more than can be imagined.  Can you explain people?  I can't.  It wouldn't take much just to get some funding for this program, but its like pulling teeth just to get some people to do anything about it.  I'd like to get funding for NASA to take up the proposition that Focus Fusion can be used as a means of propulsion.

It is said that Ricky Nelson wrote "Garden Party" in response to getting booed at by the crowd at Madison Square Garden.  They didn't seem to like what he was singing.  Well, popularity isn't everything, even though it may seem that way sometimes.  In case of politics, popularity is everything.  Without it, you can do nothing. You need people in order to move the politicians.  I may as well be Ricky Nelson getting booed off the stage as far as these ideas are concerned.  It doesn't make them bad ideas, though.

Elon Musk on why space colonization is important

From the post about the 3 inventions that will change the world.

More about the Dismal Science

Here is a Wikidpedia entry on the "Dismal Science", aka Economics.    I mention it in connection to the post about Michael C. Ruppert.  Everything the guy says about collapse is true in a finite world.  But what if that assumption is swept away by a new assumption: that the world is part of the universe which is infinite.  There are no limits except those that are self imposed.  If people want to put those self imposing limits on themselves, then they will be relegated to the dismal reality of that.  The world as a finite place is a dismal world after all.

What happened to the Ford HySeries?

This looks like a viable option based upon what I wrote recently about the 2 dollar per kg hydrogen from ammonia electrolysis concept.  This vehicle was first built back in 2007, but nothing seems to be happening on it.  What gives?

I went to Ford's Facebook site, but there's nothing there about it.  Did they give up on it?  Do they know that it is possible to produce hydrogen from ammonia at reasonable prices?  Or is there simply a lack of interest in the cars?  If so, why?  Is it on the basis of price?

Update:

Here's an article with a little more information.  The idea that these cars should cost millions of dollars is absurd.  Any prototype will cost more.  If mass produced, they may be comparable to a Chevy Volt, or Nissan Leaf.

Here's a Popular Mechanics video on it.

Airships to Orbit, An Impossible Dream?

I first wrote about this back in January, after reading about it on Al Fin's blog.  It may seem a bit impractical, and may never work.  I started following this though, because it was one way to space that would not depend on the government.  Given my low opinion of politicians and the skepticism about the government's ability or desire to do anything useful, except to enrich themselves at our expense, this approach appealed to me.

But it is taking a long time.  From what I've heard, JP has turned down investors.  It's understandable.  I could see how he could lose his dream if someone powerful took it away from him.  But on the other hand, he may never realize his dream at the rate he is going.  He needs to find a way to finance this thing on a larger scale, in my opinion.  That would entail certain risks, as mentioned.

With the events in the world scene going the way they are, there may be an opportunity for him.  If, for example, the Middle East becomes too unstable to continue supplying oil to an energy hungry world, there would have to be an alternative to air travel.  It would become too expensive to pay for jet fuel since its availability may not be what it has been in the past.  What could be a better alternative than airships?  They can get airborne and they can move long distances.  This was demonstrated decades ago.

The thing that's missing here is an ability to go the distances without using a lot of fuel.  And to get there fast.  Could his airships do this?  Maybe no one knows for sure right now, but it may be useful if we can find out.  It would stand to reason though, if he wants to get to space, he will have to be able to go plenty fast.  If he has a way of doing that, why not employ those means to commercial air travel?  If he had a commercial air travel business set up, he could fund his research to take his airship to orbit concept into space.

If I am right about this, and I  usually am right about things, it may well become a necessity.  An impossible dream may have to become reality if we are to continue enjoying the same standard of living that we have today.

Michael Savage is right

I listened to his radio show a few times, but not on a regular basis.  He seems rather over the top, but one thing he has a habit of saying is that liberalism is a mental disorder.  Based upon what Robert Reich just accused Gov Walker of Wisconsin of doing, the evidence is plain to see.

As I have written before, the coup is coming from the left, not from Walker.  Here is Reich accusing Walker of what he and the rest of the left is doing themselves.  I think the term for this is called projection.  He warns protesters not to get violent, for it will give Gov. Walker the excuse for a coup.

But it’s critically important at this stage that Walker’s opponents maintain the self-discipline they have shown until this critical point. Walker would like nothing better than disorder to break out in Madison. Like the leader of any coup d’etat, he wants to show the public his strong-arm methods are made necessary by adversaries whose behavior can be characterized on the media as even more extreme.

 

So, the exercise of legal authority by Walker in putting down violence is somehow an extralegal coup, while the violence and disorder is not?  The pot calling the kettle black, anyone?  Why the necessity to warn against violence?  Isn't it true that the protesters are over the top and the ones who are in the wrong, and Reich knows it?  If he doesn't, isn't he a bit "mental" at this stage?  If he does know, then he's a liar, isn't he?

Today's Superhero Adventure

Dr StrangeBrain is slowly discovering his superhero powers!  He discovers LameBrain's plot to take over the world!  Will he find the answer in time?