Reminiscences on the End of the Hope for Primates in Space
Authors: Paul J. Werbos
This paper addresses the question of whether humans will ever be able
to settle space in an economically sustainable way and, if there is
still hope of this, where the greatest hope may lie. It reviews key
developments of the last 40 years relevant to this issue, such the
space shuttle, the National Aerospace Plane, the Russian Ajax effort,
nonlinear control challenges, challenges of developing a “skin” to
withstand re-entry, current space programs around the world, and key
markets for using such vehicles, such as energy from space and space
manufacturing.
Comments: 18 Pages. 18p. Draft for comment of invited submitted paper.
For full text:
http://vixra.org/pdf/1112.0018v1.pdf
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Breakfast recipe and the soul of a cat
First, the recipe, and then the soul stuff.
Doing things the best way often means combining ideas from many places. So for most workdays, I now make my breakfast as follows:
1. The night before, I make a kind of miso soup (details to follow), using the
biggest of our regular soup bowls. I cook it for 1 min 40 sec in the microwave,
stir, cook again about 1 min 50 sec, cool, cover with plastic wrap and put it
in the refrigerator.
2. Next morning, cook it for 1.4 again, put a slice of Havarti cheese on top,
cook again, then eat with a big full glass of milk. Eat as much soup as I feel comfortable with, balanced with that big glass of milk. Then cover, fill to near the top with water,
and refrigerate again.
3. Doing the same (but not adding water) until it's finished, usually 3 or 4 days total.
Hey, it works. And I find it tastes better with the repeated reheating.
To make the soup:
Ingredients:
miso, tofu, clams, seaweed, onion
I am grateful to live just ten minutes from Costco, and ten miles from an H-Mart (formerly Han An Rheum, a big Korean supermarket).
For the miso... lately I buy Hakari brown-colored miso with bonito
from H-Mart, more protein and flavor than most of the competitors.
Tofu is the most troublesome ingredient. Costco and H-Mart both sell good big economy packs, with three trays each containing four big slabs. On the day when I buy a new box of tofu, I basically get out a box of ziploc sandwich bags. I slice up about 2/3 of a slab into pieces, and put it in one bag... so I end up with 18 sandwich bags,
most or all of which I freeze. It turns out that frozen tofu actually tastes better
than "fresh" in this soup. (Many Chinese prefer frozen tofu in their hot pot;
but many prefer fresh.)Of course, I throw out the water which comes with the tofu.
For clams, we regularly buy six-packs of small cans from Costco.
For seaweed, I usually buy a bag of 50 sheets of nori from H-mart, but Costco
now sells a big box of "seaweed snack" which I am using now.
For onions, I sometimes get a small bag of dried leeks from my wife Luda, but
ordinary dried onions also work.
PROCEDURE:
First I pull frozen tofu out of a bag (unless I just sliced some fresh tofu).
I put it into the bowl, and hit "defrost" on my microwave, for 0.6 pounds...
While that's going forward, I open a can of clams. And then pull out the miso,
the seaweed, the jar of dried onions, and the seaweed, and scissors.
After the tofu is defrosted, I smear "two big tablespoons" of miso paste
as thin as possible around the inside of the bowl, mixing it defacto with the tofu.
Two big tablespoons means big heaps on the BACK of the spoon, which I use for spreading
the miso around. When the miso is dissolved as much possible at the edges, in with the
water from the tofu, I then mix in the clams, and dissolve again (pushing with the back of the spoon).
Next the seaweed. I take one sheet (or most of one Costco snack pack).
With scissors, I cut into small ppieces, making sure to cut perpendicular to the surface of the bowl so that pieces fall into the bowl, not the counter.
I first slice into eight or so sheets, and then slice across eight at a time.
Then onion, which I just dump in. With dried onion, I cover about half the surface of the bowl.
I stir it up with the spoon, and there it is.
================
===============
So then the cat.
In the past year or two, my wife Luda has been out of town a few times when
I stayed home -- once to visit FedEx people in Memphis, and once to visit Leon
Chua and his meeting in Berkeley. (Chua is famous for being father both of the memristor and of the tiger mother.)
At one of those times, the cat smelled this miso soup when I was first making it
to this recipe (actually with a little salmon at that time, and not yet onion).
So I put some in his bowl, and he eagerly lapped up everything,
including seaweed and tofu and all.
The same thing on the second day.
About a week later, we started the same routine. I put some in his bowl.
He looked very eager and started running towards it.
But then he looked at Luda. Luda hates strong miso soup in principle.
She has an image of what it is. For just a few seconds, the cat looked puzzled, looking
back and forth between what he saw in the bowl, and what he saw with Luda.
And then he just walked away. As he did the second time we did the same.
A few days ago, when Luda was not around, he was really begging for some in the morning. So... one more spoon, this time onions and cheese but no salmon.
He was very eager again.
Next day with Luda, no again.
I can't prove this... but based on many other experiences like this, I think
that the cat experienced something analogous to "Couvade syndrome." Luda is
a very forceful person, and he is very much attuned to her. Not by her body image,
but by her feelings, he simply felt and adopted her feelings as her own. Humans actually do this
kind of thing very often without knowing it. With this cat, we have other experiences much more graphically proving this kind of thing.
More generally, my life experience tells me that cats and dogs really do have souls..
and that first trimester fetuses do not. (Groups like the Rosicrucians claim that
no fetuses do, but I cannot affirm that from my own experience. Still, I would
much sooner trust them than I would trust folks trying to play hermeneutics on
passages from Aristotle they do not fully understand, and striving for political power.)
All for now.
Best of luck,
Paul
P.S. I was going to post "Schrodinger's Cat Rises from the Dead on Easter Sunday,"
in regards to this anomalous cat, but they all said it was too private....
Doing things the best way often means combining ideas from many places. So for most workdays, I now make my breakfast as follows:
1. The night before, I make a kind of miso soup (details to follow), using the
biggest of our regular soup bowls. I cook it for 1 min 40 sec in the microwave,
stir, cook again about 1 min 50 sec, cool, cover with plastic wrap and put it
in the refrigerator.
2. Next morning, cook it for 1.4 again, put a slice of Havarti cheese on top,
cook again, then eat with a big full glass of milk. Eat as much soup as I feel comfortable with, balanced with that big glass of milk. Then cover, fill to near the top with water,
and refrigerate again.
3. Doing the same (but not adding water) until it's finished, usually 3 or 4 days total.
Hey, it works. And I find it tastes better with the repeated reheating.
To make the soup:
Ingredients:
miso, tofu, clams, seaweed, onion
I am grateful to live just ten minutes from Costco, and ten miles from an H-Mart (formerly Han An Rheum, a big Korean supermarket).
For the miso... lately I buy Hakari brown-colored miso with bonito
from H-Mart, more protein and flavor than most of the competitors.
Tofu is the most troublesome ingredient. Costco and H-Mart both sell good big economy packs, with three trays each containing four big slabs. On the day when I buy a new box of tofu, I basically get out a box of ziploc sandwich bags. I slice up about 2/3 of a slab into pieces, and put it in one bag... so I end up with 18 sandwich bags,
most or all of which I freeze. It turns out that frozen tofu actually tastes better
than "fresh" in this soup. (Many Chinese prefer frozen tofu in their hot pot;
but many prefer fresh.)Of course, I throw out the water which comes with the tofu.
For clams, we regularly buy six-packs of small cans from Costco.
For seaweed, I usually buy a bag of 50 sheets of nori from H-mart, but Costco
now sells a big box of "seaweed snack" which I am using now.
For onions, I sometimes get a small bag of dried leeks from my wife Luda, but
ordinary dried onions also work.
PROCEDURE:
First I pull frozen tofu out of a bag (unless I just sliced some fresh tofu).
I put it into the bowl, and hit "defrost" on my microwave, for 0.6 pounds...
While that's going forward, I open a can of clams. And then pull out the miso,
the seaweed, the jar of dried onions, and the seaweed, and scissors.
After the tofu is defrosted, I smear "two big tablespoons" of miso paste
as thin as possible around the inside of the bowl, mixing it defacto with the tofu.
Two big tablespoons means big heaps on the BACK of the spoon, which I use for spreading
the miso around. When the miso is dissolved as much possible at the edges, in with the
water from the tofu, I then mix in the clams, and dissolve again (pushing with the back of the spoon).
Next the seaweed. I take one sheet (or most of one Costco snack pack).
With scissors, I cut into small ppieces, making sure to cut perpendicular to the surface of the bowl so that pieces fall into the bowl, not the counter.
I first slice into eight or so sheets, and then slice across eight at a time.
Then onion, which I just dump in. With dried onion, I cover about half the surface of the bowl.
I stir it up with the spoon, and there it is.
================
===============
So then the cat.
In the past year or two, my wife Luda has been out of town a few times when
I stayed home -- once to visit FedEx people in Memphis, and once to visit Leon
Chua and his meeting in Berkeley. (Chua is famous for being father both of the memristor and of the tiger mother.)
At one of those times, the cat smelled this miso soup when I was first making it
to this recipe (actually with a little salmon at that time, and not yet onion).
So I put some in his bowl, and he eagerly lapped up everything,
including seaweed and tofu and all.
The same thing on the second day.
About a week later, we started the same routine. I put some in his bowl.
He looked very eager and started running towards it.
But then he looked at Luda. Luda hates strong miso soup in principle.
She has an image of what it is. For just a few seconds, the cat looked puzzled, looking
back and forth between what he saw in the bowl, and what he saw with Luda.
And then he just walked away. As he did the second time we did the same.
A few days ago, when Luda was not around, he was really begging for some in the morning. So... one more spoon, this time onions and cheese but no salmon.
He was very eager again.
Next day with Luda, no again.
I can't prove this... but based on many other experiences like this, I think
that the cat experienced something analogous to "Couvade syndrome." Luda is
a very forceful person, and he is very much attuned to her. Not by her body image,
but by her feelings, he simply felt and adopted her feelings as her own. Humans actually do this
kind of thing very often without knowing it. With this cat, we have other experiences much more graphically proving this kind of thing.
More generally, my life experience tells me that cats and dogs really do have souls..
and that first trimester fetuses do not. (Groups like the Rosicrucians claim that
no fetuses do, but I cannot affirm that from my own experience. Still, I would
much sooner trust them than I would trust folks trying to play hermeneutics on
passages from Aristotle they do not fully understand, and striving for political power.)
All for now.
Best of luck,
Paul
P.S. I was going to post "Schrodinger's Cat Rises from the Dead on Easter Sunday,"
in regards to this anomalous cat, but they all said it was too private....
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Space people discuss Newt Gingrich
Here is what I posted in response to a discussion of Newt Gingrich
by space people, some of whom were very excited by the prospect of someone like them being nominated and some of whom were aghast:
=============================
=============================
Certainly the advent of Newt Gingrich here is an interesting event. I
couldn't help
posting a few off-topic humorous thoughts about it in a personal blog
I use only for the craziest and most uncensored, unscientific
thoughts:
http://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2011/11/primary-elections-put-notion-of-reality.html
I have been in the same room with Newt Gingrich only three times in my life:
1. When he was pushing for the "Gore-Gingrich bill" years ago, a bill
to create some kind of global foresight capability funded by the US
government. At the time, my main job was energy forecasting, so I was
deeply involved in some of that. Jerry Glenn, who runs
www.stateofthefuture.org and is a friend to space (head in ancient
times of the Federation of Americans for Space, Science and Technology
FASST, present in meetings called by Barbara Hubbard), may be
interested in that aspect.
2. Alone in an elevator in 2009. Lots of people say: "You need to have
an elevator speech, the kind of thing you would say if you had just 30
seconds in an elevator with the President." In my case, I asked if he
still had an intense interest in space, the way he used to.
Unfortunately, my memory of his reply is not reliable or verbatim. I
got an impression that it was like an old school he liked, in the
past... so much has happened in the meantime, but it was a nice place,
and we should do something with it, but we have so many other
challenges.
3. Just a few months ago, 'way out in the Virginia suburbs, when I
went to have lunch with my wife and with a scientific collaborator
from Memphis, from Hungary, from Boston and from WPAFB. (One guy.)
They sat me next to Newt Gingrich, who was eating shabu-shabu and
discussing Mitt Romney with his wife. I was strongly tempted to get up
and say hello, but...
by the manners I was taught in childhood, it didn't seem right to
interrupt a guy's private lunch with his wife. (Still, it was a really
serious emotional conflict for me.)
At this moment, I probably will vote for Obama, but as an independent,
I am strongly committed to staying open-minded until the last minute.
If he picks Trump as a running mate, that would
probably crush the open mind real fast. If he reconciles with
Huffington and picks her,
and sounds more like Teddy Roosevelt after the nomination, the open
mind will become a whole lot more open. (Maybe I just like the title
of her book, Pigs at the Trough.)
In any case, the world economy is at a very delicate stage (as are the
demographics of the US),
and I wouldn't consider voting for someone capable of being a bull in
the China shop enough to crash the whole thing. That's what I'll be
looking for more than anything else as the choices become more
defined. A collapsed world economy would not exactly be good for our
future in space.
Of course, in the partisan war between the left and the right... the
COTS rebels versus
the emperor's death star SLS project... I go for the middle, for the
Boeing-focused RLV plan of Ramon Chase, who happens to be an
incredibly honest, unduly humble Eastern (old school Mormon). No
connections to Romney that I know of... but it's too bad that there
are no connections, because there may be more hope in the middle than
in either of the extremes.
-----------------
Actually, the Romney/Chase resonance reminds me a lot of the curious but stronger resonance between two other people who don't know each other, President Obama and Lonnie Johnson, of Atlanta. Lonnie (www.excellatron.com and www.johnsonrd.com)
is an incredibly creative an important inventor. Many times in public I have said: "I sometimes think he might really be the reincarnation of George Washington Carver -- only this time it is not peanuts." How two key energy inventions, a rechargeable lithium-air battery and "JTEC," could radically change the world energy system,
and make us all a whole lot safer. But despite everything... the Obama Administration has done virtually nothing to provide the crucial support that Lonnie needs (unless you count me as part of the Administration, as I help people elsewhere appreciate his work, work which has received only a small amount of support from NSF).
But... every year, a new chapter...
by space people, some of whom were very excited by the prospect of someone like them being nominated and some of whom were aghast:
=============================
=============================
Certainly the advent of Newt Gingrich here is an interesting event. I
couldn't help
posting a few off-topic humorous thoughts about it in a personal blog
I use only for the craziest and most uncensored, unscientific
thoughts:
http://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2011/11/primary-elections-put-notion-of-reality.html
I have been in the same room with Newt Gingrich only three times in my life:
1. When he was pushing for the "Gore-Gingrich bill" years ago, a bill
to create some kind of global foresight capability funded by the US
government. At the time, my main job was energy forecasting, so I was
deeply involved in some of that. Jerry Glenn, who runs
www.stateofthefuture.org and is a friend to space (head in ancient
times of the Federation of Americans for Space, Science and Technology
FASST, present in meetings called by Barbara Hubbard), may be
interested in that aspect.
2. Alone in an elevator in 2009. Lots of people say: "You need to have
an elevator speech, the kind of thing you would say if you had just 30
seconds in an elevator with the President." In my case, I asked if he
still had an intense interest in space, the way he used to.
Unfortunately, my memory of his reply is not reliable or verbatim. I
got an impression that it was like an old school he liked, in the
past... so much has happened in the meantime, but it was a nice place,
and we should do something with it, but we have so many other
challenges.
3. Just a few months ago, 'way out in the Virginia suburbs, when I
went to have lunch with my wife and with a scientific collaborator
from Memphis, from Hungary, from Boston and from WPAFB. (One guy.)
They sat me next to Newt Gingrich, who was eating shabu-shabu and
discussing Mitt Romney with his wife. I was strongly tempted to get up
and say hello, but...
by the manners I was taught in childhood, it didn't seem right to
interrupt a guy's private lunch with his wife. (Still, it was a really
serious emotional conflict for me.)
At this moment, I probably will vote for Obama, but as an independent,
I am strongly committed to staying open-minded until the last minute.
If he picks Trump as a running mate, that would
probably crush the open mind real fast. If he reconciles with
Huffington and picks her,
and sounds more like Teddy Roosevelt after the nomination, the open
mind will become a whole lot more open. (Maybe I just like the title
of her book, Pigs at the Trough.)
In any case, the world economy is at a very delicate stage (as are the
demographics of the US),
and I wouldn't consider voting for someone capable of being a bull in
the China shop enough to crash the whole thing. That's what I'll be
looking for more than anything else as the choices become more
defined. A collapsed world economy would not exactly be good for our
future in space.
Of course, in the partisan war between the left and the right... the
COTS rebels versus
the emperor's death star SLS project... I go for the middle, for the
Boeing-focused RLV plan of Ramon Chase, who happens to be an
incredibly honest, unduly humble Eastern (old school Mormon). No
connections to Romney that I know of... but it's too bad that there
are no connections, because there may be more hope in the middle than
in either of the extremes.
-----------------
Actually, the Romney/Chase resonance reminds me a lot of the curious but stronger resonance between two other people who don't know each other, President Obama and Lonnie Johnson, of Atlanta. Lonnie (www.excellatron.com and www.johnsonrd.com)
is an incredibly creative an important inventor. Many times in public I have said: "I sometimes think he might really be the reincarnation of George Washington Carver -- only this time it is not peanuts." How two key energy inventions, a rechargeable lithium-air battery and "JTEC," could radically change the world energy system,
and make us all a whole lot safer. But despite everything... the Obama Administration has done virtually nothing to provide the crucial support that Lonnie needs (unless you count me as part of the Administration, as I help people elsewhere appreciate his work, work which has received only a small amount of support from NSF).
But... every year, a new chapter...
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Neutrinos faster than light: Einstein would love it
**IF** CERN is right, Einstein would love it. A lot.
Today's theoreticians have troubles with this result because they have (mostly) become overcommitted to a narrow class of models which some of us would call quasilinear. That's partly because of the very abstract ways they try to formulate quantum mechanics, which Einstein objected to enormously. If the laws of the universe obey Einstein's special relativity, but are NOT quasilinear, the vacuum speed of light need not be an absolute limit in regions like earth which are not vacuum. Working with Infeld in his later years, Einstein worked hard to try to explore the possibilities of a new nonquasilinear theory of gravity (beyond general relativity which is nonquasilinear but limited in some ways), and to find empirical data to help choose among the many possibilities. He would rejoice to hear of it.
Let me try to explain this again another way. Einstein claimed that the laws of the universe, the true "theory of everything," could be expressed as a set of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDE). Most physicists now believe that it's impossible that things could be so simple, because they couldn't figure out how to explain some basic experiments, like the "Bell's Theorem" experiments, with that kind of theory. But I could. In the International Journal for Theoretical Physics in 2008,
I showed how one can reconcile these experiments with Einstein's viewpoint. In fact, empirical data has already shown us that the usual "Copenhagen" version of quantum mechanics taught in school today is clearly wrong. See
http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.1234 .
Einstein's theory of special relativity says that these PDE obey a certain symmetry relation, called Lorentz or Poincare symmetry. (Those are not exactly the same, but I don't want to get TOO technical here.)
Mathematicians have proved that information cannot flow faster than the speed of light in forward time, in universes governed by PDE which are "quasilinear," meaning that
the terms which have the most derivatives in them must be linear. The nonlinearity is just in lower-level interaction terms. But Einstein was interested in looking for new
nonquasilinear theories to his dying day...
================
================
What about HUMANS traveling faster than light, across the vacuum of space?
In my view, most "modern' discussions of this issue are about as trustworthy
as discussions by ancient Egyptian scholars in 2000BC discussing the possibility of television, radio and cell phones. We need to learn a whole lot of other stuff first before it could be even close to real. Yet we don't know enough to say it is impossible. Even general relativity (which would rule out the CERN neutrinos)
does admit of "Alcubierre" solutions which would allow FTL travel, under certain
problematic conditions. A new, more refined physics (both for space bending
ala CERN's results and for nuclear forces) might well allow more feasible solutions.
But we would have to rediscover the scientific method to have hope of getting there..
not to mention surviving the next few years,
Today's theoreticians have troubles with this result because they have (mostly) become overcommitted to a narrow class of models which some of us would call quasilinear. That's partly because of the very abstract ways they try to formulate quantum mechanics, which Einstein objected to enormously. If the laws of the universe obey Einstein's special relativity, but are NOT quasilinear, the vacuum speed of light need not be an absolute limit in regions like earth which are not vacuum. Working with Infeld in his later years, Einstein worked hard to try to explore the possibilities of a new nonquasilinear theory of gravity (beyond general relativity which is nonquasilinear but limited in some ways), and to find empirical data to help choose among the many possibilities. He would rejoice to hear of it.
Let me try to explain this again another way. Einstein claimed that the laws of the universe, the true "theory of everything," could be expressed as a set of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDE). Most physicists now believe that it's impossible that things could be so simple, because they couldn't figure out how to explain some basic experiments, like the "Bell's Theorem" experiments, with that kind of theory. But I could. In the International Journal for Theoretical Physics in 2008,
I showed how one can reconcile these experiments with Einstein's viewpoint. In fact, empirical data has already shown us that the usual "Copenhagen" version of quantum mechanics taught in school today is clearly wrong. See
http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.1234 .
Einstein's theory of special relativity says that these PDE obey a certain symmetry relation, called Lorentz or Poincare symmetry. (Those are not exactly the same, but I don't want to get TOO technical here.)
Mathematicians have proved that information cannot flow faster than the speed of light in forward time, in universes governed by PDE which are "quasilinear," meaning that
the terms which have the most derivatives in them must be linear. The nonlinearity is just in lower-level interaction terms. But Einstein was interested in looking for new
nonquasilinear theories to his dying day...
================
================
What about HUMANS traveling faster than light, across the vacuum of space?
In my view, most "modern' discussions of this issue are about as trustworthy
as discussions by ancient Egyptian scholars in 2000BC discussing the possibility of television, radio and cell phones. We need to learn a whole lot of other stuff first before it could be even close to real. Yet we don't know enough to say it is impossible. Even general relativity (which would rule out the CERN neutrinos)
does admit of "Alcubierre" solutions which would allow FTL travel, under certain
problematic conditions. A new, more refined physics (both for space bending
ala CERN's results and for nuclear forces) might well allow more feasible solutions.
But we would have to rediscover the scientific method to have hope of getting there..
not to mention surviving the next few years,
Saturday, November 12, 2011
solar flares as 2012 panic
Here is Post an email I sent back in April to technically serious people, about
the fear that solar flares (or more nefarious) things could "end civilization as we know it." The bottom line is that the risk is quite real, and I basically agree with the Republican Congressman who reviews all the big threats... and views this as the biggest in the near term. It is also a threat easily reduced... but through sheer bureaucratic inertia and silliness we really could get ourselves killed this way.
Details follow.
===============================
http://www.empcoalition.org/
http://www.empactamerica.org/
The Energy Infrastructure Security Summit (EISS) held on Monday and Tuesday was
unusually information-rich and informative. I owe you some quick summary.
http://www.eissummit.com/
Congressman Trent Franks (R-Texas), the host began by noting that the committee he serves on gets
briefed on ALL of the scariest threats confronting the US, half in classified briefings.
He regards the impact of EMP on the power grid as the most important and scariest
of all of them, and considers it his top priority. He is not alone. Congresswoman
Yvette Clarke (D-NY) solidly agreed, and acted like co-host of the meeting. They noted that their bill
last year passed the House UNANIMOUSLY (!), and died in the Senate by only one vote, due
to jurisdictional issues rather than substance.
Months ago, I expressed some concern about the numbers I had heard from the National Academy of Sciences 9NAS)
report on this issue -- like $1-2 trillion worth of damage in case we have another "one in a century" event.
Knowing more now than I did then -- I **MOSTLY** understated the challenge and the need and possibility for immediate action,
but I really did overstate one of the key variables, which I need to correct.
One of the obvious questions is: "What is the probability of a solar storm in the 2012-2015 time period so intense
that it would fit what NAS assumes for $1-2 trillion of damage, if we do not harden the grid?"
A few months back, I cited a space weather workshop where opinion was divided by about 50-50. But at this summit,
they presented the raw data and primary analysis. (The head of NOAA spoke, and then introduced Thomas Bogdan,
Director of their Space Weather Prediction Center -- just one of the speakers who gave important data and affirmed the seriousness
of the problem. By the way, Avi Schnurr, the EISS coordinator, said that a complete video record
will be available within about six weeks on their web site.) They discussed the 1859 "Carrington event" and the large 1921
solar storm, as reference points. Just by naked eyeball of the various graphs, and by putting together what they said,
I would now guess something like a 20% probability of an event like 1921 and 10% of an event like Carrington
in the 2012-2015 cycle. And that is certainly very crude. A more serious estimate would be possible... but I don't
think we have one yet. (I heard just one guy with more confidence, but holes in his logic.) In fact, one of the
major action items is some improvement in the solar weather information. I was intrigued by the idea of how NASA's
new STEREO solar observing satellites might be used to get a better fix on some
of these general probabilities -- which is different from providing fast warning to earth; both are desirable.
It was clear at the meeting, as in prior discussions here, that different people are violently attached to different definitions of what
"EMP" actually means. The Congressional EMP Commission basically defined it as any large electromagnetic surge,
natural or man-made, which threatens our society. Others define it only as man-made, as weapons.
Personally, I would like to follow the Commissions usage, because it seems to me that the words "electromagnetic pulse"
are pretty explicit.
A key question is: what does it take to harden the grid to an acceptable degree against all three kinds of EMP threat --
the kinds of surges called "E1" (superfast), "E2" (like lightning) and "E3" (less intense but more prolonged, as with solar storms)?
And there is also an issue that there may be less warning with some threats than with others.
Some speakers on the second day appeared to say that we should harden the grid only against solar storms and lightning
(E2 and E3 with advanced warning), since the grid is part of the civilian economy, and man-made threats are under
the jurisdiction of DOD and DHS, and perhaps not really so serious. But other talks convinced me that the man-made threats
are also a serious concern. Congresswoman Clarke applauded the speaker who compared the power grid to the interstate highway system,
and pointed out how Eisenhower made sure it was efficient for its civilian purpose but also had a few additional low-cost features
of great importance to national security in certain scenarios. A speaker from Advanced Fusion Systems (AFS not a nuclear fusion company!)
noted the principle of Pareto optimality -- how we get much more protection overall if we efficiently combine our concerns. In this
case combining means hardening against E1, E2 AND E3 ... and thinking hard about the warning and operator training issues.
The present default game plan is that NERC will develop new reliability standards which include hardening the grid,
which FERC will certify, with lots of inputs from EPRI, represented at this meeting by John Houston of Centerpoint Energy.
He and Kapperman (of the recent EMP Commission) and AFS were the only speakers, as best I recall, that got into real EE
details, which will be essential to keep this from degenerating into another stakeholder's bait and switch operation (a phenomenon
which has become all to prevalent here in DC, in my personal view, in what I have seen.). (Reminder: nothing I post here
is the official viewpoint of NSF or anyone else.) Two key people -- Congresswoman Clarke and Peter Pry (former CIA
guy and Bartlett staffer, behind a lot of the Congressional interest) -- expressed great concerns about the delays
which still might occur if there is not some additional determination and technical oversight of some kind.
Kapperman may well be behind the estimate that $100-200 million and "existing technology" are enough to harden at least the 200-300
biggest high voltage transformers. (That's maybe about 40% of the problem, but it would make a huge difference in trying to restart
if one of these events occurred.) The "existing technology" is a way of combining familiar circuit elements, described in detail in the
Commission report, for which they gave out copies on DVD. Kapperman said that the key hardware will actually become available off the shelf
in a ready-to-go package from Advanced Fusion Systems (which sounds like a company founded to start implementing the Commission recommendations)
going into manufacturing, available circa December of this year. Houston stressed the need for testing. It sounds as if the most
important really physical action needed now is to begin the tests which would provide enough confidence to start deploying this stuff
(per "retrofit") on the grid as soon as possible. The Congressfolk and Commissioner LaFleur from FERC (the official FERC leader
on this issue and reliability in general) all stressed that they want a useful degree of hardening to begin as soon as possible, without waiting
for "the last data point" or for the perfect solution.
Of course, I do hope that a stream is created to develop the best technology possible for the whole spectrum here,
but it seems clear that we should not allow that to delay what is most urgent here. Parallel tracks of effort are called for.
So that's pretty much the story, at this level. I haven't really studied the thousands of pages of material, and there is certainly
a lot I still have to learn about this stuff -- but at least the pdf is refined and convolved compared with what it was here just
a few months back.
Just for your amusement -- James Woolsey was also one of the important speakers, and there were a number of interesting converstaions in the
hallways with various kinds of intel folks. Circa 20 nations were represented -- most visibly the UK, represented for example
by the MP in charge of THEIR defense select committee. The head of the Swedish grid deplored how few people understand just how
urgent and critical this issue is. There was a talk by the CEO of EnergySec, which works with electric utilities on cybersecurity,
who agreed with most of the speakers that EMP is a bigger threat to the grid than cybersecurity issues, at least if we look ahead a year
or more. Of course, he and many others would support an "all hazards" approach which also includes cybersecurity -- but that's what
the House tried last year, which they had to cut back on because of turf wars.
the fear that solar flares (or more nefarious) things could "end civilization as we know it." The bottom line is that the risk is quite real, and I basically agree with the Republican Congressman who reviews all the big threats... and views this as the biggest in the near term. It is also a threat easily reduced... but through sheer bureaucratic inertia and silliness we really could get ourselves killed this way.
Details follow.
===============================
http://www.empcoalition.org/
http://www.empactamerica.org/
The Energy Infrastructure Security Summit (EISS) held on Monday and Tuesday was
unusually information-rich and informative. I owe you some quick summary.
http://www.eissummit.com/
Congressman Trent Franks (R-Texas), the host began by noting that the committee he serves on gets
briefed on ALL of the scariest threats confronting the US, half in classified briefings.
He regards the impact of EMP on the power grid as the most important and scariest
of all of them, and considers it his top priority. He is not alone. Congresswoman
Yvette Clarke (D-NY) solidly agreed, and acted like co-host of the meeting. They noted that their bill
last year passed the House UNANIMOUSLY (!), and died in the Senate by only one vote, due
to jurisdictional issues rather than substance.
Months ago, I expressed some concern about the numbers I had heard from the National Academy of Sciences 9NAS)
report on this issue -- like $1-2 trillion worth of damage in case we have another "one in a century" event.
Knowing more now than I did then -- I **MOSTLY** understated the challenge and the need and possibility for immediate action,
but I really did overstate one of the key variables, which I need to correct.
One of the obvious questions is: "What is the probability of a solar storm in the 2012-2015 time period so intense
that it would fit what NAS assumes for $1-2 trillion of damage, if we do not harden the grid?"
A few months back, I cited a space weather workshop where opinion was divided by about 50-50. But at this summit,
they presented the raw data and primary analysis. (The head of NOAA spoke, and then introduced Thomas Bogdan,
Director of their Space Weather Prediction Center -- just one of the speakers who gave important data and affirmed the seriousness
of the problem. By the way, Avi Schnurr, the EISS coordinator, said that a complete video record
will be available within about six weeks on their web site.) They discussed the 1859 "Carrington event" and the large 1921
solar storm, as reference points. Just by naked eyeball of the various graphs, and by putting together what they said,
I would now guess something like a 20% probability of an event like 1921 and 10% of an event like Carrington
in the 2012-2015 cycle. And that is certainly very crude. A more serious estimate would be possible... but I don't
think we have one yet. (I heard just one guy with more confidence, but holes in his logic.) In fact, one of the
major action items is some improvement in the solar weather information. I was intrigued by the idea of how NASA's
new STEREO solar observing satellites might be used to get a better fix on some
of these general probabilities -- which is different from providing fast warning to earth; both are desirable.
It was clear at the meeting, as in prior discussions here, that different people are violently attached to different definitions of what
"EMP" actually means. The Congressional EMP Commission basically defined it as any large electromagnetic surge,
natural or man-made, which threatens our society. Others define it only as man-made, as weapons.
Personally, I would like to follow the Commissions usage, because it seems to me that the words "electromagnetic pulse"
are pretty explicit.
A key question is: what does it take to harden the grid to an acceptable degree against all three kinds of EMP threat --
the kinds of surges called "E1" (superfast), "E2" (like lightning) and "E3" (less intense but more prolonged, as with solar storms)?
And there is also an issue that there may be less warning with some threats than with others.
Some speakers on the second day appeared to say that we should harden the grid only against solar storms and lightning
(E2 and E3 with advanced warning), since the grid is part of the civilian economy, and man-made threats are under
the jurisdiction of DOD and DHS, and perhaps not really so serious. But other talks convinced me that the man-made threats
are also a serious concern. Congresswoman Clarke applauded the speaker who compared the power grid to the interstate highway system,
and pointed out how Eisenhower made sure it was efficient for its civilian purpose but also had a few additional low-cost features
of great importance to national security in certain scenarios. A speaker from Advanced Fusion Systems (AFS not a nuclear fusion company!)
noted the principle of Pareto optimality -- how we get much more protection overall if we efficiently combine our concerns. In this
case combining means hardening against E1, E2 AND E3 ... and thinking hard about the warning and operator training issues.
The present default game plan is that NERC will develop new reliability standards which include hardening the grid,
which FERC will certify, with lots of inputs from EPRI, represented at this meeting by John Houston of Centerpoint Energy.
He and Kapperman (of the recent EMP Commission) and AFS were the only speakers, as best I recall, that got into real EE
details, which will be essential to keep this from degenerating into another stakeholder's bait and switch operation (a phenomenon
which has become all to prevalent here in DC, in my personal view, in what I have seen.). (Reminder: nothing I post here
is the official viewpoint of NSF or anyone else.) Two key people -- Congresswoman Clarke and Peter Pry (former CIA
guy and Bartlett staffer, behind a lot of the Congressional interest) -- expressed great concerns about the delays
which still might occur if there is not some additional determination and technical oversight of some kind.
Kapperman may well be behind the estimate that $100-200 million and "existing technology" are enough to harden at least the 200-300
biggest high voltage transformers. (That's maybe about 40% of the problem, but it would make a huge difference in trying to restart
if one of these events occurred.) The "existing technology" is a way of combining familiar circuit elements, described in detail in the
Commission report, for which they gave out copies on DVD. Kapperman said that the key hardware will actually become available off the shelf
in a ready-to-go package from Advanced Fusion Systems (which sounds like a company founded to start implementing the Commission recommendations)
going into manufacturing, available circa December of this year. Houston stressed the need for testing. It sounds as if the most
important really physical action needed now is to begin the tests which would provide enough confidence to start deploying this stuff
(per "retrofit") on the grid as soon as possible. The Congressfolk and Commissioner LaFleur from FERC (the official FERC leader
on this issue and reliability in general) all stressed that they want a useful degree of hardening to begin as soon as possible, without waiting
for "the last data point" or for the perfect solution.
Of course, I do hope that a stream is created to develop the best technology possible for the whole spectrum here,
but it seems clear that we should not allow that to delay what is most urgent here. Parallel tracks of effort are called for.
So that's pretty much the story, at this level. I haven't really studied the thousands of pages of material, and there is certainly
a lot I still have to learn about this stuff -- but at least the pdf is refined and convolved compared with what it was here just
a few months back.
Just for your amusement -- James Woolsey was also one of the important speakers, and there were a number of interesting converstaions in the
hallways with various kinds of intel folks. Circa 20 nations were represented -- most visibly the UK, represented for example
by the MP in charge of THEIR defense select committee. The head of the Swedish grid deplored how few people understand just how
urgent and critical this issue is. There was a talk by the CEO of EnergySec, which works with electric utilities on cybersecurity,
who agreed with most of the speakers that EMP is a bigger threat to the grid than cybersecurity issues, at least if we look ahead a year
or more. Of course, he and many others would support an "all hazards" approach which also includes cybersecurity -- but that's what
the House tried last year, which they had to cut back on because of turf wars.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Primary elections put the notion of reality into question
I don't really believe in the Tibetan Buddhist view of life, but it has a way
of seeping in at times. And I admit to a bit of uncertainty, as a matter of principle.
Actually, I associate the high Tibeta view with Swedenborg and Joel Whitton's Life Between Life.
They would say that reality appears so tough and hard yielding to our thoughts when we just think alone -- but consensus reality can change when millions of people slip in and out together, and create reality out of thoughts embedded in their subconscious minds.
The Republican primary elections really remind me of that a whole lot. In fact,
the 2008 primaries also stressed my sense of reality. Maybe I should start at the beginning.
At first, in 2008, I wondered whether we were seeing a collective re-enactment of
the "Wizard of Oz." There went Hilary (Dorothy) dancing down that yellow brick road paved with gold, basically happy and friendly with her friends the scarecrow (Obama) and the cowardly lion (McCain). It did unnerve me a bit when the tornado came down on that house in Clinton Arkansas in the middle of the primaries, and I saw on TV news...
two red slippers they found under the house, which looked to me just like the ones in the old movie.
But then McCain did not like the casting. It did not satisfy his pride.
So he (and others?) changed the channel to Beowulf, which was just then coming around in 3D, with Angelina Jolie plating Sarah Palin. Beowulf was a really great and proud role... until that dragon came around and burned down the castle... and the world
economy in September 2008.
What next?
This time around, chapter one reminded me of the the Buddhist three monkeys,
or more, a kind of Mormon morality tale. Three main candidates -- one with
too much caffeine (Bachmann), one with too much alcohol (Perry) and one with too much money (Romney). I had an earlier post on that. At the time, too much money seemed safer, but I look at how utterly inept the financial community is acting on its own in the EU, and I do worry about the risk of similar myopia here. They are not exactly living up to Von Neumann and Morgenstern's idea of enlightened self-interest, due to obvious blinders. They have an important place in human society, but can they handle it all competently alone?
But Romney came up with his great line "a corporation is a person too."
So in chapter two, we had a choice of which of three corporations (incarnated as human avatars) to vote for -- Oil Incarnate (Perry, which I could say more about, but
Christian virtues say not to unless circumstances change), Banks Incarnate (Romney)
or Pizza Incarnate (Cain). Given how folks are feeling out there these days, it's not at all surprising they would vote for pizza. Even if they don't always believe those ads about a 9.99 special, they figure that pizza folks do really pay attention to their customers and don't spend their whole lives figuring out how to screw them.
But then came a shudder.
Is Genesis in some small measure "prophecy"? Could it be that the fight between
two brothers Cain and Able will soon unravel? If Cain kills Able will we end up in some place which makes the status quo look like Garden of Eden by comparison?
(Is this a dream or what that we are actually living? Hey, I didn't make up
Cain here...)
But now... as the coyote pulling Perry's strings tries to strike back at Cain...
this morning a new dynamic has emerged, which startles me even more.
It is now Cain only slightly ahead of Romney and Gingrich (and Perry sinking fast).
Two corporations versus... a human being? How did a human being get into this race?
Weren't they supposed to be verboten here, like pedestrians walking on a highway?
This is doubly unnerving to me for many reasons.
First -- there is something odd about my past I need to mention, only briefly at a surerficial level. Long ago, in 1969, when I figured out (independently) how to
do reasoning by Bayesian networks, I realized very quickly how my own life uniquely violates what appear to be the laws of probability (e.g. iid assumption..).
Even when I wander through humble corridors of life... I keep running into people
at odd times. In the mid 1960's, I went just once to a bar in downtown Boston with some friends. And there I ran across Richard Nixon... who at that time was seen
by most as a former politician. In 1967 I ran across Edward Heath in a similar situation (tea and gardening not alcohol). And there was that girl Pinki Bhutto
(really more her roommate). And friends who got promoted up into the stratosphere, so to speak. Al Gore and Gingrich both, back at the time of the Gore-Gingrich bill
to better understand the future. And Heisenberg's boss/collaborator on the subway train to the Washington zoo. (He was a bit hairy himself, but interesting to talk to.)
And... so... I remember the time in 2009 when I was accidentally alone with Gingrich
in an elevator, totally by accident... and did at least have the guts to ask if he was still interested in space. (Maybe I should say something about Rohrabacher here,
but this was not in THAT building.) And then just a couple of months ago,
when I went to restaurant out in the suburbs here... they sat me and my wife
and collaborator form Memphis right next to Gingrich, who was eating shabu shabu with
his wife. (A great restaurant, but when I later tried the shabu shabu myself, it
was the only thing I ever had there which seemed just mediocre.)
So... could it be yet again? Should I have had the temerity to say hello and mention my strange experience before that time?
Gingrich is not only human, but an intelligent human.
Yet when I look at the world economic system today, and I look at his recent book,
I fear he isn't out of the box enough to keep it from getting worse, let alone
a chance of recovery. The 180s have their own way of screwing up, when the challenges
are really huge. And what of the recent quite but decisive reorganization in the
Republican party which gives the funding agents far more control than even the weirdest stuff we have seen in the past few years?
Still, if he is brave enough to reconcile with Arianna Huffington when he has the nomination in the bag (IF, I should say... I certainly don't predict it...
even if I feel some goosebumps...)... and they REALLY draw he line against the
really big corporate welfare which threatens our future.. like the tax breaks
which label oil companies as "distressed manufacturing" (curiously absent from
the "get-rid-of-subsidies" bill now being pushed by Marshall, under oil company funding)....
Who knows?
To be honest, I currently plan to vote for Obama in 2012, in great part because his jobs bill suggests he may have learned some math on the job... and a real human being, who can see at least basic math, seems frightening rare these days. He has made some big mistakes, but if he is able to learn from his mistakes... that's better than voting for a statue or an avatar.
But as the Quakers say, there is that of God in everyone...
of seeping in at times. And I admit to a bit of uncertainty, as a matter of principle.
Actually, I associate the high Tibeta view with Swedenborg and Joel Whitton's Life Between Life.
They would say that reality appears so tough and hard yielding to our thoughts when we just think alone -- but consensus reality can change when millions of people slip in and out together, and create reality out of thoughts embedded in their subconscious minds.
The Republican primary elections really remind me of that a whole lot. In fact,
the 2008 primaries also stressed my sense of reality. Maybe I should start at the beginning.
At first, in 2008, I wondered whether we were seeing a collective re-enactment of
the "Wizard of Oz." There went Hilary (Dorothy) dancing down that yellow brick road paved with gold, basically happy and friendly with her friends the scarecrow (Obama) and the cowardly lion (McCain). It did unnerve me a bit when the tornado came down on that house in Clinton Arkansas in the middle of the primaries, and I saw on TV news...
two red slippers they found under the house, which looked to me just like the ones in the old movie.
But then McCain did not like the casting. It did not satisfy his pride.
So he (and others?) changed the channel to Beowulf, which was just then coming around in 3D, with Angelina Jolie plating Sarah Palin. Beowulf was a really great and proud role... until that dragon came around and burned down the castle... and the world
economy in September 2008.
What next?
This time around, chapter one reminded me of the the Buddhist three monkeys,
or more, a kind of Mormon morality tale. Three main candidates -- one with
too much caffeine (Bachmann), one with too much alcohol (Perry) and one with too much money (Romney). I had an earlier post on that. At the time, too much money seemed safer, but I look at how utterly inept the financial community is acting on its own in the EU, and I do worry about the risk of similar myopia here. They are not exactly living up to Von Neumann and Morgenstern's idea of enlightened self-interest, due to obvious blinders. They have an important place in human society, but can they handle it all competently alone?
But Romney came up with his great line "a corporation is a person too."
So in chapter two, we had a choice of which of three corporations (incarnated as human avatars) to vote for -- Oil Incarnate (Perry, which I could say more about, but
Christian virtues say not to unless circumstances change), Banks Incarnate (Romney)
or Pizza Incarnate (Cain). Given how folks are feeling out there these days, it's not at all surprising they would vote for pizza. Even if they don't always believe those ads about a 9.99 special, they figure that pizza folks do really pay attention to their customers and don't spend their whole lives figuring out how to screw them.
But then came a shudder.
Is Genesis in some small measure "prophecy"? Could it be that the fight between
two brothers Cain and Able will soon unravel? If Cain kills Able will we end up in some place which makes the status quo look like Garden of Eden by comparison?
(Is this a dream or what that we are actually living? Hey, I didn't make up
Cain here...)
But now... as the coyote pulling Perry's strings tries to strike back at Cain...
this morning a new dynamic has emerged, which startles me even more.
It is now Cain only slightly ahead of Romney and Gingrich (and Perry sinking fast).
Two corporations versus... a human being? How did a human being get into this race?
Weren't they supposed to be verboten here, like pedestrians walking on a highway?
This is doubly unnerving to me for many reasons.
First -- there is something odd about my past I need to mention, only briefly at a surerficial level. Long ago, in 1969, when I figured out (independently) how to
do reasoning by Bayesian networks, I realized very quickly how my own life uniquely violates what appear to be the laws of probability (e.g. iid assumption..).
Even when I wander through humble corridors of life... I keep running into people
at odd times. In the mid 1960's, I went just once to a bar in downtown Boston with some friends. And there I ran across Richard Nixon... who at that time was seen
by most as a former politician. In 1967 I ran across Edward Heath in a similar situation (tea and gardening not alcohol). And there was that girl Pinki Bhutto
(really more her roommate). And friends who got promoted up into the stratosphere, so to speak. Al Gore and Gingrich both, back at the time of the Gore-Gingrich bill
to better understand the future. And Heisenberg's boss/collaborator on the subway train to the Washington zoo. (He was a bit hairy himself, but interesting to talk to.)
And... so... I remember the time in 2009 when I was accidentally alone with Gingrich
in an elevator, totally by accident... and did at least have the guts to ask if he was still interested in space. (Maybe I should say something about Rohrabacher here,
but this was not in THAT building.) And then just a couple of months ago,
when I went to restaurant out in the suburbs here... they sat me and my wife
and collaborator form Memphis right next to Gingrich, who was eating shabu shabu with
his wife. (A great restaurant, but when I later tried the shabu shabu myself, it
was the only thing I ever had there which seemed just mediocre.)
So... could it be yet again? Should I have had the temerity to say hello and mention my strange experience before that time?
Gingrich is not only human, but an intelligent human.
Yet when I look at the world economic system today, and I look at his recent book,
I fear he isn't out of the box enough to keep it from getting worse, let alone
a chance of recovery. The 180s have their own way of screwing up, when the challenges
are really huge. And what of the recent quite but decisive reorganization in the
Republican party which gives the funding agents far more control than even the weirdest stuff we have seen in the past few years?
Still, if he is brave enough to reconcile with Arianna Huffington when he has the nomination in the bag (IF, I should say... I certainly don't predict it...
even if I feel some goosebumps...)... and they REALLY draw he line against the
really big corporate welfare which threatens our future.. like the tax breaks
which label oil companies as "distressed manufacturing" (curiously absent from
the "get-rid-of-subsidies" bill now being pushed by Marshall, under oil company funding)....
Who knows?
To be honest, I currently plan to vote for Obama in 2012, in great part because his jobs bill suggests he may have learned some math on the job... and a real human being, who can see at least basic math, seems frightening rare these days. He has made some big mistakes, but if he is able to learn from his mistakes... that's better than voting for a statue or an avatar.
But as the Quakers say, there is that of God in everyone...
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
dreams in the mind of the electorate
Before, the choice in the Republican nomination seemed clear:
too much alcohol, too much caffeine, or too much money.
That has morphed a bit: choose between too much alcohol, smoking,
Mormonism... or what was that caffeine stuff?
Stage two: if a corporation can be a person, can a "person"
actually be a corporation? Vote for Mr. Oil Companies,
Mr. Banks or Mr Pizza. No surprise if pizza wins in that contest these days.
(Myself, I would have spoken back... hey, we do need banks... but with the way they are screwing up the eurozone, which could also hurt us, maybe this is not a time to assert that viewpoint with much confidence or force.)
Stage three: Is Genesis not history but prophecy? Will we soon see the battle between two brothers,
Cain and Able... and if Cain really destroys Able, will we end up "East of Eden"..
in a state which makes the status quo, for all its faults, look like a Garden of Eden by comparison?
Some say "let us pray." Right now, I could kind of get into that.
too much alcohol, too much caffeine, or too much money.
That has morphed a bit: choose between too much alcohol, smoking,
Mormonism... or what was that caffeine stuff?
Stage two: if a corporation can be a person, can a "person"
actually be a corporation? Vote for Mr. Oil Companies,
Mr. Banks or Mr Pizza. No surprise if pizza wins in that contest these days.
(Myself, I would have spoken back... hey, we do need banks... but with the way they are screwing up the eurozone, which could also hurt us, maybe this is not a time to assert that viewpoint with much confidence or force.)
Stage three: Is Genesis not history but prophecy? Will we soon see the battle between two brothers,
Cain and Able... and if Cain really destroys Able, will we end up "East of Eden"..
in a state which makes the status quo, for all its faults, look like a Garden of Eden by comparison?
Some say "let us pray." Right now, I could kind of get into that.
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