Space Geeks Seek Wireless Power

By Michael Grebb 02:00 AM Oct. 20, 2005 PT

The concept is at least as old as Nikola Tesla, the turn-of-the-20th-century icon who used to demonstrate the wonders of electricity by letting it course through his body as crowds gawked in wonder. Tesla was so fascinated with electricity and wireless frequencies that he spent the early 1900s constructing the Wardenclyffe Tower on land near Long Island Sound, partly to demonstrate that he could beam energy from one point to another without any wires. But, alas, Tesla experienced a horror that many technology pioneers of today understand all too well: His investors pulled out before he could finish the project.

Since then, however, scientists have shown that one can generate power, convert it to lasers or microwaves, beam it to another point and reconvert it into electricity. Such a system could beam power to hard-to-reach rural areas without running expensive power lines -- or could even beam it down to Earth from power stations in space. But while proponents argue that wireless power beams could solve the world's energy problems, skeptics aren't so sure. In addition, the concept hasn't proven itself as a practical energy alternative: at least not yet.

"The power beam thing comes and goes," said Leonard David, a space expert who helped gather research on beaming microwave power from solar-powered satellites for the U.S. Department of Energy in the mid-'70s and now writes for Space.com. "The whole concept was a dream-machine solar collection array that would collect energy in outer space. The physics of it look intriguing, but these things have been waylaid."

The government also got distracted with other potential applications. "Before long, somebody said, 'Hey wait. We can make this into a weapon,'" he said.

Indeed, the U.S. military is developing a new class of potentially non-lethal "directed-energy weapons" that could create a Star Trek-esque world of warfare. Set the phaser to stun or kill, depending on the situation. Defense contractor Raytheon actually delivered an energy-weapon prototype to the Pentagon earlier this year, and some believe such weapons could see combat in Iraq and Afghanistan by late 2006.

Meanwhile, the idea of wireless energy transmission continues to evoke on-and-off interest from governments around the world. One long-sought application is aviation. In 1987, Canada successfully flew its Stationary High Altitude Relay Platform aircraft using power generated from a microwave beam on the ground. In 1992, Japan successfully flew its own version of a microwave-powered plane as part of a project known as MILAX. And in October 2003, NASA actually used a ground-based laser beam to power the flight of a tiny 11-ounce aircraft made of balsa wood and carbon fiber tubing, and covered in Mylar film.

Others have imagined terrestrial networks of power-beaming stations that could fuel electric cars and other vehicles, which would essentially "top off" every time they passed by a station. Some could power up vehicles at stoplights. These are still just concepts, but proponents hope that at least in the United States, the post-Sept. 11 desire to wean the country from foreign sources of energy could renew interest in alternative concepts, including wireless power.

Even the boldest concepts are getting a hearing at the highest levels.

In November 2003, David Criswell, director of the Institute for Space Systems Operations at the University of Houston, testified before the Senate Commerce Committee's subcommittee on science, technology and space to pitch a Lunar Solar Power system. LSP would use colossal solar arrays on the surface of the moon that would beam microwave energy down to Earth. Criswell's concept is massive in scale: It would involve building 20,000 to 30,000 reception stations on Earth to accept the power beams and convert them into electricity that could be distributed to the population (The solar panels would be constructed on the moon with raw materials in the soil in "basically a glass-making process," he said).

Meanwhile, a series of moon bases housing up to 5,000 human beings (but possibly only a few hundred because of recent advances in automation and robotics) would be required on the lunar surface. "I hope they're Americans," Criswell told Wired News. "We'd be extending ourselves off of the Earth permanently."

Criswell predicts that the LSP system could produce a steady 20-terawatt stream that he predicts the estimated 10 billion people living on Earth by 2050 will need. "It actually provides you with such clean, sustainable energy that we can correct our past errors," he said.

Of course, Criswell's enthusiasm isn't shared by everyone. One problem is the price tag: Criswell said the project would cost at least $500 billion before it started to break even, after which it would start paying for itself and increasing global wealth exponentially. Still, it's a hefty bill for an untested concept. And then there's the issue of sending thousands of microwave-energy beams down to Earth. The prospect of bathing the planet in radiation hardly sounds appealing. "I walked away from the (Department of Energy) project a little bit worried," said Space.com's David. "You start adding up all the microwave-generating sources bombarding people, and you start to say, 'Wait a minute. What's an acceptable level'"?

Criswell dismisses such concerns, arguing that the microwaves could be directed at human-free zones around power stations and made so weak that radiation exposure would amount to standing in the sunlight or talking on a cell phone. Other concepts revolve around using satellites in Earth orbit rather than a lunar solar array.

One idea involves dangling a tether from a satellite into the Earth's atmosphere, which naturally emanates energy, and then feeding that power back up to the satellite, which would beam microwaves or lasers down the Earth for conversion into electricity. Others advocate vast solar panels in Earth orbit that would collect energy from the sun and beam it back down the same way.

The major downside is the cost. "This is not cheap technology," said Craig Mathias, a principal at advisory firm Farpoint Group. "The problem is the expense of launching the satellites. You're looking at the equivalent of paying hundreds of dollars per gallon of oil. You'd have to put up acres of solar cells -- so many that it would literally darken the day."

NASA, for its part, has in fact been trying to find a cheaper way to get materials into space, even toying with a "space elevator" concept in which a tether would dangle down to Earth from a geostationary satellite, and climbing robots would carry materials up and down the structure. The problem is that they would need to travel thousands of miles to reach high Earth orbit, and that's where wireless power comes in.

"Space elevators need power beaming," said Brant Sponberg, manager of NASA's Centennial Challenges project. "They can't carry an extension cord all the way down to the ground."

As a result, NASA has created the 2005 "Beam Power Challenge" to award $50,000 to the team whose climbing bot can lift the most mass in three minutes by most efficiently converting beam power into electricity. Second and third place will receive $20,000 and $10,000, respectively. At this year’s Oct. 21 competition, all teams will receive power from the same photonic source: a 10-kilowatt Xenon searchlight. But next year’s competition will allow each team to also build their own beam-power device, which could use photons, lasers or microwaves. Sponberg said the purse for the 2006 competition will be $150,000 ($100,000, $40,000 and $10,000 to the three best teams).

But Sponberg also pointed out that "NASA has no plans to build a space elevator in the near future," which means that such power-beaming innovations may not be applied for years, if ever. - wired.com

Boeing based paper

It is technically and economically feasible to provide at least 100,000 GWe of solar electric energy from facilities on the Moon. The Lunar Solar Power (LSP) System can supply to Earth power that is independent of the biosphere and does not introduce CO2, ash, or other material wastes into the biosphere.

Power beams are considered esoteric and a technology of the distant future.

However, Earth-to-Moon power beams of near-commercial intensity are an operational reality.

Fig. 3 is an artist's concept of the new Trumpet satellite that employs a 100 m diameter reflector antenna. Trumpet is now in geosynchronous orbit. It is operated by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office [7]. This reflector, only a few tons in mass, has a diameter within a factor of 1 to 3 of that necessary to redirect a power beam to a 1 km diameter or larger rectenna on Earth. Trumpet is reportedly similar in design to antennas planned for the Hughes commercial HS 601 AMPT satellites. Power beams and redirector satellites can minimize the need for long-distance power transmission lines and their associated systems.

Alternatively, a power beam from the Moon can be received by a receiver satellite. The relay satellite then retransmits new beams to several rectennas on Earth.

The transmission of beams, with commercial level intensity in low Earth orbit, has been demonstrated by unmanned and manned spacecraft.

Fig. 4 illustrates the NASA Shuttle with a phased array making a synthetic aperture radar picture of the Earth. Near the Shuttle the beam has an intensity the order of 150 W/m2. This is well within the range for commercial transmission of power [6, 8].

Astronauts will land the Moon with spades to dig for helium-3

11/02/2005

A few kilograms of the lunar substance will be enough to start a thermonuclear electric power station

Head of the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, Nikolay Sevastyanov, said the other day that the International Space Station was getting its second wind and it got new objectives. The ISS is supposed to be used as a platform to assemble complexes sent to the Moon.

"One of the station docks can wonderfully do for receiving carriers with lunar blocks. This may be a lateral dock of Zvezda and Zarya modules or additional platforms on the propulsion modules," representatives of the corporation said.

Ordinary booster rockets like Progress or Soyuz are supposed to deliver components of a lunar ship from the surface to the ISS. A flight to the Moon will require one or several stages to pull the complex to the Moon, and one spaceship for astronauts. Primarily, three pioneers will be enough to reach the Moon, circle the satellite and then get back to the surface. Subsequently, the number of astronauts may considerably increase depending upon the results of the test flight. It is not ruled out that astronauts will even have a chance to land on the Moon during the second flight.

Today, experts consider opportunities of mining helium-3, the key mineral which can be found on the Moon. The Rocket and Space Corporation Energia states that this new fuel may be even more effective than traditional ones. A few kilograms of the lunar substance will be enough to start a thermonuclear electric power station. Delivery of helium-3 from the Moon to the surface will return great profits. To begin the mining of helium-3 on the Moon, astronauts must first of all build a base for miners to live and work in. Experts already know the exact location of helium-3 fields on the Moon. A special machine will be going about the lunar surface; it will dig, warm the lunar soil, regolith, and then extract helium-3. It is planned to build such a base in one of the lunar seas.

Europeans, Americans and even Chinese also want to participate in the project. November 1, head of Russia's Roskosmos, Anatoly Perminov, came to China to conduct talks about the future of Russian-Chinese space cooperation. - pravda

Russia to open moonbase mine

From: Agence France-Presse From correspondents in Moscow - January 26, 2006

RUSSIA is planning to mine a rare fuel on the moon by 2020 with a permanent base and a heavy-cargo transport link, a Russian space official says.

"We are planning to build a permanent base on the moon by 2015 and by 2020 we can begin the industrial-scale delivery ... of the rare isotope Helium-3," Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of the Energia space corporation, was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying at an academic conference.

The International Space Station (ISS) would play a key role in the project and a regular transport relay to the moon would be established with the help of the planned Clipper spaceship and the Parom, a space capsule intended to tug heavy cargo containers around space, Mr Sevastyanov said.

Helium-3 is a non-radioactive isotope of helium that can be used in nuclear fusion.

Rare on earth but plentiful on the moon, it is seen by some experts as an ideal fuel because it is powerful, non-polluting and generates almost no radioactive by-product - news.com.au

Russia, U.S. in new race for the Moon

Vladimir Radyuhin MOSCOW: Russia and the United States look set to join a new space race for the Moon. Russian space officials have announced plans to set up a permanent base on the Moon by 2020 to mine valuable fuel. Two years ago to the day U.S. President George W. Bush unveiled similar plans tied to the same timeframe.

"We are planning to build a permanent base on the moon by 2015 and begin the industrial-scale delivery... of the rare isotope Helium-3 by 2020," head of Russia's Energia space corporation Nikolai Sevastyanov said addressing an academic conference in Moscow.

Helium-3 is a highly promising fuel for thermonuclear reactors, which is extremely scarce on Earth and abundant on the Moon. Mr. Sevastyanov said one tonne of the isotope would generate as much energy as 14 million tonnes of oil.

Experts said 100 tonnes of Helium-3 could meet the Earth's entire energy needs for one year, while the Moon is believed to hold up to 500 million tonnes of helium-3 trapped in the upper layers of the lunar rock.

Both Russia and the U.S. set 2020 as the deadline for mining the lunar isotope.

This is also the target year for the construction of a thermonuclear reactor running on helium-3.

"The country which is the first to deliver helium-3 to Earth will win the race for global energy leadership," said Russian Academician Erik Galimov. "Our space industry is quite capable of doing it." - hinduonnet.com

Russian Rocket Builder Aims for Moon Base by 2015, Reports Say

26 January 2006 - MOSCOW (AP) - The head of a leading Russian space company said it was considering plans to set up a permanent moon base by 2015, a statement that appeared to be an effort to win government funds rather than a specific action plan, news reports said Thursday.

Nikolai Sevastyanov, the head of the state-controlled RKK Energiya company that built Soyuz and Progress spacecraft, said that mining helium-3, a potential rich source of energy, and harnessing it back to Earth would be a key priority in the moon exploration program, the Gazeta.ru and Lenta.ru Web sites reported. Sevastyanov said a Russian moon base could start tapping helium-3 in 2020. He and other Russian space officials have made similar projections in the past, but the government hasn't allocated any funds yet for moon exploration. Sevastyanov's statement, made at a seminar on space research, appeared to be part of Energiya's publicity campaign aimed at attracting government funding for the development of a next-generation spacecraft. Sevastyanov said the Klipper spacecraft being designed by Energiya could serve as a transport ship to deliver helium. The company has also proposed building the Parom (Ferry) space vehicle that could help assemble elements of moon missions on Earth's orbit.

In January 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush outlined a plan for NASA to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020 and then on to Mars and beyond.

Scientists believe the moon's rich resources of helium-3 could be used in futuristic fusion reactors on Earth that would generate electricity without producing nuclear waste. Such fusion technology could also power rockets for deep space travel in the future. There is so little helium-3 on Earth that the technology hasn't been studied much. The moon appears to have it in abundance because it lacks the atmosphere and magnetic field that keep helium-3 from raining down on our planet from outer space.

Speaking at the same seminar in Moscow, Erik Galimov, the head of the Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry Institute, also said Thursday that helium-3 could emerge as a vital source of energy as Earth's resources were being quickly exhausted, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. - space.com

Experts poles apart over Moon landing sites

17:19 06 February 2006 NewScientist.com news service - Kimm Groshong

A healthy debate over whether humans should go to the Moon's well-studied equatorial regions or its more enigmatic but sunny poles is emerging among lunar researchers, as NASA pushes towards a return to the Moon. Reminiscent of debates seen during the planning stages of the Mars rovers mission, its central question asks whether robotic landers and later human missions should focus on the known equatorial regions or the promising, but still largely unknown, polar regions of the satellite.

Recently, David McKay, chief scientist for astrobiology at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, US, circulated a white paper suggesting at least one landing site should be located on dark volcanic rock deposits - called pyroclastic deposits - mainly found away from the Moon's poles.

The deposits are thought to run deep and contain extremely fine-grained particles likely to be rich in material that could be used for in situ manufacturing. Besides raw materials, McKay says, the overall advantage is that "producing oxygen and hydrogen from lunar pyroclastics may be significantly simpler and cheaper than from any other lunar feedstock." These components could be key for life support and fuel production.

True split

But many researchers argue that the polar regions should be the top priority. A number of current and planned international lunar orbiting missions will help fill the knowledge gaps. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, planned for launch in late 2008, aims to identify resources around the Moon that later missions might investigate.

The lunar research community is truly split over where to send future landers, says Butler Hine, deputy program manager for the Robotic Lunar Exploration Program at Ames Research Center in California, US.

"Half of the science community says the most interesting place to go is the polar regions and half of the community says it's the equatorial regions," he says. "But my prediction is that the first lander will go to the polar regions." he told New Scientist.

Water traps

Others say the debate is not so evenly divided. Lunar and planetary scientist Charles Wood of Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, US, says "there seems to be this bandwagon to go to the poles." He describes McKay's white paper as "a refreshing change of thought".

The argument to explore the northern polar regions is driven by the possibility that water ice from comets may lay frozen in the shadowed depths of impact craters there. Some of those potential shadowy water traps are thought to be near other areas that receive nearly constant sunlight. The water ice theory is fuelled by data from the Lunar Prospector Orbiter, which indicates abundance of hydrogen atoms at the poles. But no one definitively knows whether that hydrogen is in the form of water ice.

Making light work

But even without the increased levels of hydrogen, the increased sunlight provides a compelling argument for going to the poles, says Ben Bussey, at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, US. He reported in 2005 (Nature, vol 434, p 842) that data from the 1994 Clementine mission showed that several spots high on the rims of craters near the North Pole were constantly illuminated throughout an entire lunar day - about 29 Earth days - in the summer.

"The poles may present the best place to be for an extended period of time," he says. "It's the light that is potentially enabling."

Scientists believe horizontal solar panels at the poles could collect energy from the Sun at least 75% of the time while the equatorial regions of the Moon alternate between 14 Earth-days of sunlight and an equal period of darkness. Models have estimated that the poles stay within about a 10 degree range of -50°C. Meanwhile, temperatures at the equator fluctuate between -180°C and 100°C. - newscientistspace.com

Space Hawks Chase Death Rays

By John Lasker | Also by this reporter - Mar, 01, 2006

For more than a year, Bruce Gagnon strongly suspected he and his family were being spied on, but he didn't have any evidence, and he didn't know who might be behind it. An Air Force veteran, Gagnon is one of the most prominent activists in the world concerned with space weapons. He directs the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space from a small office in Maine. Still, he was caught off guard when the American Civil Liberties Union called and told him it had uncovered court documents revealing that NASA and the U.S. Air Force were secretly monitoring him.

"We're a small organization with meager resources," said Gagnon. "They feel threatened by us? That tells us something."

As tourists line up to ride private rocket ships into space, the galaxy has never seemed closer as a theater for war. The evidence goes beyond surreptitious surveillance of peace-loving space activists. Even now, lobbyists from the fledgling commercial space industry are besieging Capitol Hill, hoping to persuade the government to hand out contracts to help put the U.S. military into orbit.

This week is "March Storm," when 50 to 75 lobbyists will spend three days speaking with staffers from more than 250 offices on Capitol Hill. Some of the lobbyists represent the aerospace industry, but most have been hired by smaller space startups and entrepreneurs. The big talking point? How the private sector can help the U.S. military build space-based weapons a lot faster and with a lot less of taxpayers' money.

"The U.S. military still doesn't have the capability to launch a spy satellite on demand," said Marc Schlather, director of ProSpace, the lobbyist group coordinating March Storm. "We are seeking a cross-pollination."

The Bush administration, as the Clinton administration before it, continues to push forward President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative -- or "Star Wars" -- a wide-ranging space weapons program first proposed in the mid-1980s.

Since the '80s, the military has spent an estimated $120 billion trying to develop weapons that could destroy incoming nuclear, biological or chemical warheads targeting American cities.

Yet in the 20 years since Reagan called for this multilayered "space shield," the military is still light-years away from deploying any directed-energy weapons or anti-satellite mines.

Despite the lack of tangible progress, the Bush administration increased the Star Wars budget by 20 percent for 2007, with the total allocation reaching $10.7 billion, an increase of nearly $6 billion since 1999.

Gagnon is convinced this master plan for space defense is nothing but a fantastic Trojan horse.

"This massively costly program under way today is not really about defense," he said. "The true purpose of this arms program is to control and dominate space. And whoever controls space will control the Earth."

Gagnon and other critics say the military's ambition to control space has been an objective since the beginning of the Cold War.

The Bush administration has called for a permanent base on the moon by 2020, Gagnon noted. Once there, the United States will be able to monopolize the moon's resources, he said, such as helium-3, an element rare on Earth but abundant on the moon that may drive nuclear fusion.

In January, Russia announced a similar plan, aiming to establish a permanent base on the moon by 2015 and mining operations to extract helium-3 by 2020. China, which in 2003 became the third country in the world to send a human into space, has announced plans for an unmanned lunar landing by 2010, and a manned moon mission by 2020.

To protect U.S. interests, Gagnon said space-based weapons will be deployed near or on the moon.

"The military has stated the moon is the ultimate high ground," Gagnon said. "There's going to be a scramble for the moon by the Chinese, the Russians and the Americans. This is real. There's going to be a conflict over it."

Theresa Hitchens, director of the Center for Defense Information, a Washington think tank, said the militarization of space is being championed by factions in the Air Force, the Pentagon, the Defense Department and even the White House -- but not by all.

"There is a debate ongoing about the wisdom, the affordability and the do-ability of implementing a full-up space-war fighting strategy," she said.

But because China is claiming to have developed anti-satellite capabilities, and the U.S. military is fighting terrorists across the globe, "these space hawks are emboldened now," said Hitchens. On the other hand, Hitchens said there are factions within the Air Force and the White House against the militarization of space, mostly because the cost would run into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Hitchens said the space hawks, which include Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have clearly stated their goals in several strategic-planning reports published during the last several years.

"While our ultimate goals are truly to 'exploit' space through space force enhancement and space force application missions, as with other mediums, we cannot fully 'exploit' that medium until we first 'control' it," said U.S. Space Command in the recent Strategic Master Plan FY06 and Beyond.

Controlling space, said sources, was outlined in a Department of Defense report published in 2000 titled Joint Vision 2020. The report introduces the doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance, or supremacy on land, sea, air -- and space.

"In the past, Full Spectrum Dominance meant land, sea and air," said a public affairs officer from U.S. Space Command, who declined to give his name. "Now it encompasses cyberspace and space.

"We need to operate in the realm of space. No doubt about it," added the officer. "We also reserve the right to protect our assets in space." - Wired

A Case for the Moon

We all know the Sun radiates heat to the ground and causes evaporation, from the puddles on the footpath to the oceans and rain forests, yet there is no way the Sun can cause the evaporation to fall back to the Earth. Moreover, it can rain at night, when there is no Sun in the sky. The Sun cannot make it rain or snow, something else must be responsible. There is only one other thing in the sky capable of exerting the necessary huge forces that would be required.

The Moon has about one sixth of the Earth's gravitational force. From only a couple of hundred thousand miles away, changes in the Moon's orbital patterns are going to have major effects on Earth. Between a third and a quarter the size of Earth, the Moon is equivalent in size to a smaller person running around and around an adult, all day every day. Ask yourself, would that affect you? Better still, ask the mother of a two-year-old.

Simply stated, changes in the Moon's movement can trigger changes in our weather. How it works is really rather logical but scientists seem to have a vested interest in not stating it. Possible reasons for this political manoeuvring will soon become clearer.

Meteorologists utilise sea level or sea surface temperature analysis as tools in forecasting, Because sea tides/levels/temps are affected by many lunar factors, including synodic cycle, apsidal cycle(perigee/apogee), apsidal angle, declination angle, declination hemisphere, inclination, nodal or nutation cycle, apsidal cycle, anaomalistic cycle, tide cycle, variable diurnalism, moon's angular momentum crossing ecliptic and equator, tide times and other cycles within cycles; it is hard to see how can they rule out the Moon as an empirical variable. And that is not even mentioning secondary (arguably lunar) factors such as wind speed and force, high and low pressure zones, cycles of currents, land movement etc. By virtue of tides and gravitational pull the Moon has its stamp on anything to do with the oceans.

It is little known that there are at least four separate but sometimes interfacing tides caused by lunar gravitation. The best known is the sea-tide, the exact times of which repeat every so many weeks, months and years. There is also the inner-core tide affecting the molten core of the Earth(Core Tide) which plays a major role in the cycles of earthquakes and eruptions, the land-tide (called Earth-tide, where the ground rises towards the Moon about 8 inches per day as the Moon goes overhead and then recedes again when the Moon goes below the horizon) and the air-tide affecting the height of the atmosphere. If the Moon has an effect on the sea then it must control the tides by distribution of the water. So is it too silly to state that if it has an effect on the atmosphere then it must control the weather by distribution of the clouds?

Why should clouds, air, land and inner mantle not be tidal?

They are masses of flexible matter. As masses they are subject to the pull of a large gravitational body such as a close Moon. The movable fluids on Earth would like to fly off into space toward the Moon, but are more strongly held to Earth by the Earth's gravity and so remain on the Earth's surface. But the inconstant Moon causes these fluids to be in flux. The Sun, too, has a tidal pull on these fluid bodies, but being much further away, has a pull less than half that of the Moon. So how does the Moon's gravitational force overcome the gravity of the Earth, and affect those movable masses? The answer is that there are times when Earth's gravitational force is nullified, and these are special positions of the Sun and Moon and planets, from which forces from above can effect changes on Earth.

It is the old principles of Astrology that we should be turning back to to re-examine, the subject that people with Higher Learning imagine to be at worst the stuff of the Devil or at best only a silly party game. When it comes to the Old Astrology, the Moon was the central player, the Moon established the pivot from which everything else related. Etymologically speaking, our word measurement came from moon.

At only ten earth-circumferences away the Moon is very close, actually it is our closest celestial neighbour, and it has two and a half times the gravitational pull of the Sun. Therefore it exerts an influence on everything movable on our planet, be it solid, liquid or gas. Much of this influence is barely noticeable because there is nothing to compare it too, like the rising of the land towards the transiting moon, called the Earth Tide, and the receding of it back again within 24 hours. Part of the problem is that we are very locked in to what we can see, and that goes for our technology, in which we only believe that which we can see through instruments of our own making. But does that not mean that forces do not exist for which we have not yet invented instruments to measure.

Each Moon phase has a changing effect on the weather, whether it be droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes or lightning. And as the atmosphere has its daily tide, the air density too is forever changing. If it did not, barometric pressures would always remain constant. The volume of air changes just as does the volume of sea water in a bay during high SEA tide, but we can see that. We can't see a high AIR tide because we haven't yet invented an instrument to detect it. Yet by deduction we can conclude that it must occur. To put it another way, it would be very odd if the Moon chose to daily pull upward the sea and land but decided against daily changing the height of the massiveocean of air.

Every New moon time, for two or three days, the Moon shields us from the solar wind; that electromagnetic energy force-field sent forth into space by the Sun. Older cultures and civilisations knew that at this time of maximum shielding, the New moon period was the best time for planting and fishing, and so over thousands of years grew the lunar planting and fishing calendar.

Since 1976 satellite data coming from NASA suggests that these ancient lunar calendar systems that were used to determine seasonal climatic fluctuations indeed had a sound scientific basis. NASA is currently collecting aerial evidence of ancient stone circles, and last year (I know because I was there)discreetly surveyed in NZ, the large ancient stone circle at Mangonui Bluff near Dargaville which displays the same diameter dimensions as Stonehenge(288 feet), which some claim could be further proof of the existence of the Indo/Egypto/European culture in NZ many thousands of years ago.

This supports the legends of Ngapuhi and Tuhoe tribes about the elusive white-skinned Patu-paiarehe, Urekuhu and Turehu peoples. These are mentioned from the north of NZ to the Ureweras in Maori oral tradition, and it seems along with other now-vanquished tribes they were hunted to extinction. Some historians hold the view that the Polynesians started as an originally Caucasian race in the foothills of the Himalayas. Researcher Richard Holdaway has found, catalogued and carbon-dated rat-bones 2,000-years old from natural predator sites around Taupo in NZ, and his team have confirmed that rats could only have been brought here by man.

It seems that the prehistory of NZ needs to be written, and my reason for stating this is that the seeming reluctance to do so parallels the reluctance on the part of meteorologists to mention the Moon in weather forecasts. Many agriculturalists would like to learn about the true science of weather, so they might be furnished with their own forecasting tools if they were available, the lack of which at the moment means they are unable to plan ahead for more than 2 or 3 days and this impacts on their livelihoods.

The parallel gies further. Schoolchildren are taught that ancient peoples came here by accidental voyaging, by navigating by the stars. With respect to historians, both can't be true. If you don't know where you're going, what are you looking up for? Lost in a pitch black night, the most intricate map will be of no help. There is no Maori word for Australia, not only the nearest island to NZ but also the world's biggest. If accidentally voyaging or if migrating by a star-map then you'd think Australia would at least once get a mention as in "if you hit dot dot dot you've gone too far. In a similar way we are told that we are accidental voyaging with the weather(it is out of control, we don't know what is going to happen or where the climate is going) and that we are at one and the same time navigating way off(aha..we can see we are heading for global warming).

I believe the ancient peoples knew where they were going. I believe they either sailed here with good maps or were brought here by others who had the maps. Tongaroa, who commanded the "canoes" was described as a chief with white skin. There were maps of the southern ocean in existence 20,000 years ago. They were stored in the libraries of Alexandra, and some are shown and described in the book Ancient Maps of The Sea Kings(by Charles Hopgood). It is very likely that Euro/Indy traders from ancient times distributed work-gangs of many races, including Asian, Melanesian and Polynesian peoples all over the Pacific to establish colonial outposts, which would explain why the Hawaiian language is so understandable to today's speaker of Maori and why Moriori and some Maori appear frizzy-haired, some straight and some with Asian characteristics. It would also explain how two tribal names, Tainui and Arawa are found on S America. Even Captain Cook believed the Maori were brought to NZ as slaves. All this is not to denigrate present-day Maori status, but simply to accord Maori a rightful place in the nation's history. Similarly I believe the old peoples knew about the moon and the weather, and set up stone circles to measure the progress of both.

The old still works

One might say that moon-weather knowledge so old, it can now be considered new again. Due to the decoding work of the structure of stone circles during the last few decades, we can guess that lunar orbit calculation was probably well known 12,000 or more years ago. All the ancient stone circles are aligned to the Moon in the same way. The smaller ones are ratio replicas of Stonehenge, indicating the same system was utilised internationally. It seems stone-circle builders were obsessed with lunar declination and nodal crossings - almost certainly for weather, long range climate and for eclipse prediction. The vast ancient wisdom began to disappear with the destroying by the early Christians of the libraries of Alexandria, in their hopes of destroying paganism of which the Moon had become the paramount symbol.

Why do you think 13 is considered 'unlucky'? 13 was always known as the Moon's number, because 13 features so much in the mathematics of the Moon's orbits - 13 full and new moons each year, 13 declination cycles, 13 perigees and apogees, and the Moon moves 13 deg per day through space in its monthly orbit around the earth. Lesser known are orbit anomalies that occur at roughly 13 weeks and 13 years. Examples: every 13 years the phases recur(just over a week later). Every 26 years the opposite phase and apse occur about the same time. Every 31 years(18+13) the opposite phase of the Moon occurs about two days later. Every 5 years(18-13) the opposite phase occurs(about 3 weeks later) with a single relation to the apse..

Poor old 13 got itself declared unlucky, evil, heretic and powerless by the new religious order that wanted to distance you from anything that even reminded you of the Moon. They did a number on it, so to speak. Bear in mind that to even talk about this in the Middle Ages as we are doing now would have meant certain torture and death and future residence in hell. You are all sinners.

The old forecasting science went into decline and in some cases underground for two millennia and has continued to be largely ignored by mainstream science. Lunar forecasting was done by Theophrastus in 300BC, by Copernicus, Galileo, Nostradamus, Johannes Kepler, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Francis Bacon four centuries ago and in 1750 by Benjamin Franklin. Each was a lunar forecaster and put out an Almanac predicting weather. Each one who did it got himself into hot water politically. Still alive in those eastern cultures that have retained their lunar calendars, it became far less common in the western world as the new religion demanded the newer solar calendar.

Nowadays the idea of a lunar orientation is slowly becoming reawakened as people begin to realise the benefits that can be gained. This is a way for the common person to once again be able to predict weather trends for him/herself without having to watch the TV and be forced to see the advertisers' products. One day weather-science will once again be reachable by commonfolk, instead of being just another profit-driven industry.

Forecasters do their best with the tools available, but when put on the spot most will admit to having no longrange method. They have inherited a science that has large gaps, along with a refusal to consider cycles, opting instead for a linear mindset whereby weather and climate are believed to be getting steadily and mysteriously worse for the whole planet.

One would think that science would be open to the introduction of new testable ideas and possibilities, but such is not the case. The Moon and acquiring any further knowledge about it is still actively suppressed as being a pagan activity and the mere mention of the Moon still sometimes creates fear and hostility. Also suppressed is any discussion about it, on NZ weather forums or in the newspapers. I know because I've tried and been told that Moon theories and methods have no place in Our Science.

I have good-naturedly been called a "lunatic" in TV interviews and on radio, a gentle fobbing off. The labels 'snake oil', New Age, voodoo, hocus pocus, lunatic etc become par for the course amongst skeptics who, rather than investigate the orbits and behaviour of the Moon and correlate that to weather events in any scientific way, find it easier to guffaw and smirk - a process some might call job protection. Well, I suppose everyone has to eat.

Unfortunately for these skeptics many academically respectable research papers have been done linking Moon influence with weather. I compiled a book 'Predicting Weather By The Moon' in which I cited from 30 such university-level research conclusions, all listed in the appendix. Much work has been done and it has not been challenged, and the results are waiting to be incorporated into weather science, but sad to say most climate and weather scientists simply refuse to focus on the Moon beyond sea tides. Air tides are definitely a no-no. One wonders what there was to be afraid of.

Perhaps the universities, the media and the government, in other words The Establishment, do not want another viewpoint popularised. Perhaps there is more revenue in maintaining the knowledge status quo. Perhaps there is a fear of one day having to admit one might have been unaware of the whole story when one wrote the weather textbooks. Or perhaps it is just the fear of change.

There is much to learn about the Moon and her fascinating movements - information most would not have learned at school. And even now in the 21st century, information about the orbital behaviour of our nearest celestial neighbour can mostly only be found in back-alley astrology shops. Pick up any popular book about weather in your nearest book shop and look for 'moon' in the index. It is a rare book that even will be found to list the planet, let alone give it any role. But like it or not, the study of lunar cycles holds the key to understanding weather. - Ken Ring -

"Weatherman" forecasts weather months on advance whilst other Meteorologists claim that the weather patterns cannot be forecasted more than 5 days in advance. Forecasts are based on the likely pattern of atmospheric-tidal movements, winds and wind changes plus high and low pressure zones based on correlations of past, and future lunar orbits and phases. - see here for radio interview

Spacecraft to Slam into the Moon

By Leonard David Senior Space Writer posted: 07 March 2006

Scientists are plotting out a "crash course" in learning what happens when a European lunar probe slams into the Moon. The European Space Agency's (ESA) SMART-1 spacecraft-now circling the Moon-is headed for a planned early September impact with Earth's celestial neighbor.

The ESA probe would plow into the lunar surface, giving it a glancing blow as it speeds in at nearly 5,000 miles per hour (2 kilometers per second).

SMART-1 is Europe's first robotic lunar mission. The name SMART stands for Small Mission for Advanced Research in Technology

The spacecraft was launched on September 27, 2003. Making use of its ion-propulsion engine to slowly nudge it outward from Earth, the probe powered its way into lunar orbit on November 15, 2004.

Outfitted with miniaturized instruments, SMART-1's goal has been to gauge key chemical elements in the lunar surface, as well as look into the theory that the Moon was formed following the violent collision of a smaller planet with Earth long ago.

ESA's lunar probe completes a loop around the Moon every five hours-but that's about to end later this year.

Rehearsal mode

Engineers and scientists are now targeting SMART-1 for possible impact on the Moon around September 1-2. The current uncertainty range for the exact time of impact is 15 hours.

At the end of June, SMART-1 is slated to carry out two maneuvers. These will fine-tune the exact time of impact. Those slight thrust firings will lead to the spacecraft flying over the Moon at its lowest point at below186 miles (300 kilometers) in altitude.

In early July, the plan calls for assessing the success of the maneuver and determining the spacecraft's orbit and expected impact time. Later that month, the probe will zip as close as 124 miles (200 kilometers) from the barren lunar landscape.

In early August, SMART-1 will make an overflight of its eventual impact site, racing over that area at just 75 miles (120 kilometers) height in what's termed as "rehearsal" mode for the early September run-in with the Moon.

According to Bernard Foing, ESA SMART-1 project scientist, an inventory is being made of the composition and mechanical properties of the spacecraft-including aluminum, copper, titanium, and other materials, as well as the probe's remaining hydrazine fuel.

That data will be used to support observations of what is kicked up from the Moon itself on impact, contrasted to bits, pieces, and fuel tossed into the mix due to SMART-1's high-speed slap.

Boom and bust finale

Here on Earth, sky watchers worldwide are getting ready for the projected September 1-2 lunar boom and bust finale of SMART-1.

Foing told SPACE.com that he is now engaged in assembling a "coordinated campaign" of ground-based observations. This activity would support SMART-1 measurements and monitor the artificial crash that mimics in a small way, an asteroid or comet hit on the Moon.

Numbers of observatories around the world have indicated interest in watching the outcome from SMART-1's collision with the Moon, Foing has reported.

At impact, the ESA spacecraft will weigh a little over 628 pounds (285 kilograms), punching the Moon at a grazing incidence near 37 degrees south latitude. The near-side impact is timed so that it will be illuminated to assist in observations from Earth.

A current orbit simulation of the SMART-1 impact for September 2 is at lunar longitude 44.54 degrees West and 36.22 South in Lacus Excellentiae, 10 degrees south of Mare Humorum. A far more refined target point will come as the event draws closer.

Crater-making crash

Back on July 31, 1999, the Moon was on the receiving end of NASA's Lunar Prospector.

That farewell fall of space hardware struck within a crater near the lunar south pole-in an attempt to detect water ice stirred up by the wallop. No visible debris plume was reported.

According to Foing, the hope is that those Earth-based observers intending to take part in September's thump of the Moon can make pre-hit predictions of SMART-1's impact magnitude, cloud ejecta dynamics, exospheric effects and other observable manifestations brought about by the crash.

Coordinated measurements by observers here on Earth are high on the priority list, Foing noted. Impact observations would include: Infrared imaging of thermal flash; visible/infrared imaging of ejected clouds; hydrazine flame detection; post-characterization of ejecta; as well as exospheric effects if lunar material is blasted high off the Moon's surface.

In addition, Foing said, there is also intent to conduct follow up searches for the crater produced by SMART-1's crash into the Moon via the sensor eyes of future, follow-on lunar orbiters. - space.com

Watch Out for Moonquakes

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 - During the Apollo Moon missions - between 1969 and 1972 - NASA astronauts placed seismometers at their landing sites to detect if the Moon has earthquakes (moonquakes). The equipment mostly detected minor tremors, but it also experienced some fairly strong ones, measuring greater than 5.5 on the Richter scale. And they lasted for a very long time, sometimes going on for 10 minutes. If the next group of astronauts will be visiting the Moon for any length of time, they'll need a lunar base that can withstand the occasional trembler.

NASA astronauts are going back to the moon and when they get there they may need quake-proof housing.

That's the surprising conclusion of Clive R. Neal, associate professor of civil engineering and geological sciences at the University of Notre Dame after he and a team of 15 other planetary scientists reexamined Apollo data from the 1970s. "The moon is seismically active," he told a gathering of scientists at NASA's Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) meeting in League City, Texas, last October.

Between 1969 and 1972, Apollo astronauts placed seismometers at their landing sites around the moon. The Apollo 12, 14, 15, and 16 instruments faithfully radioed data back to Earth until they were switched off in 1977.

And what did they reveal?

There are at least four different kinds of moonquakes: (1) deep moonquakes about 700 km below the surface, probably caused by tides; (2) vibrations from the impact of meteorites; (3) thermal quakes caused by the expansion of the frigid crust when first illuminated by the morning sun after two weeks of deep-freeze lunar night; and (4) shallow moonquakes only 20 or 30 kilometers below the surface.

The first three were generally mild and harmless. Shallow moonquakes on the other hand were doozies. Between 1972 and 1977, the Apollo seismic network saw twenty-eight of them; a few "registered up to 5.5 on the Richter scale," says Neal. A magnitude 5 quake on Earth is energetic enough to move heavy furniture and crack plaster.

Furthermore, shallow moonquakes lasted a remarkably long time. Once they got going, all continued more than 10 minutes. "The moon was ringing like a bell," Neal says.

On Earth, vibrations from quakes usually die away in only half a minute. The reason has to do with chemical weathering, Neal explains: "Water weakens stone, expanding the structure of different minerals. When energy propagates across such a compressible structure, it acts like a foam sponge-it deadens the vibrations." Even the biggest earthquakes stop shaking in less than 2 minutes.

The moon, however, is dry, cool and mostly rigid, like a chunk of stone or iron. So moonquakes set it vibrating like a tuning fork. Even if a moonquake isn't intense, "it just keeps going and going," Neal says. And for a lunar habitat, that persistence could be more significant than a moonquake's magnitude.

My Note: Power generated from earthquakes: imagine a tuning fork which is banged vibrating... Now imagine huge tuning forks on tectonic plates near a fault line and tapped of this vibrational energy during an earthquake...

How a Clock Works If a tuning fork mechanism can power a clock through vibration imagine how much power earthquakes could provide ?

UK: SOLAR POWER FROM SPACE IN 2100?

/noticias.info/

Looking well into the future at which emerging technologies might help power the UK and the world was the subject of the Energy 2100 conference in London today.

Scientists, engineers, researchers and industry gathered to debate the technologies and do some long-term horizon scanning. Initiated by the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology and presented by the Royal Academy of Engineering, its purpose was to look ahead, in the light of best current knowledge, to the energy supply options which could exist in the UK in 2100.

Speaking at the conference, Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said:

"This conference will explore options from wind and tidal power to nuclear fission and fusion, and will also look at more speculative ideas such as space based solar power and nanotechnology to imitate the way plants harness and use solar energy. There is an amazing range of technologies that could provide the planet's energy needs a century from now. Of course, a lot of this will be speculation but one thing we can be pretty certain about is that by the end of this century we will be living in a low carbon economy. We have no choice. Our current reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable; our carbon emissions are throwing the climate out of balance.

"Human ingenuity - in particular the ingenuity of scientists and engineers whom we will be hearing from today - will be crucial in developing new energy sources. I am fascinated by some of these technologies; there is enormous potential in areas such as hydrogen fuel cells and tidal power, which we will be discussing today. And I look forward to hearing from the energy companies themselves about their long-term research projects.

"The prospect of finding energy sources to replace fossil fuels and supply them to the world is stimulating the market to great activity, as one would expect. But we cannot leave it all to market forces; there is a role for government too, not least because of the question of timing. Government can help frame the market so that it pulls technologies forward from being the stuff of science fiction to real world demonstration and commercial viability, as well as pushing new technologies through support such as that given by the Research Councils.

"Our current Energy Review is looking at the balance between "push" and "pull", and I look forward to presenting my recommendations to the Prime Minister this summer. The Review is focussing on UK energy policy from 2010. But today is about looking beyond the medium term and I relish the opportunity to do a bit of blue sky thinking with some of the country's top scientists and engineers."