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Project Dragonfly Lives!
Here is another great post from Centauri Dreams, written by Andreas Hein. Good stuff.
2089, 5th April: A blurry image rushes over screens around the world. The image of a coastline, waves crashing into it, inviting for a nice evening walk at dawn. Nobody would have paid special attention, if it were not for one curious feature: Two suns were mounted in the sky, two bright, hellish eyes. The first man-made object had reached another star system.
Is it plausible to assume that we could send a probe to another star within our century? One major challenge is the amount of resources needed for such a mission. [1, 2]. Ships proposed in the past were mostly mammoths, weighing ten-thousands of tons: the fusion-propelled Daedalus probe with 54,000 tonnes and recently the Project Icarus Ghost Ship with over 100,000 tonnes. All these concepts are based on the rocket principle, which means that they have to take their propellant with them to accelerate. This results in a very large ship.
Another problem with fusion propulsion in particular is the problem of scalability. Most fusion propulsion systems get more efficient when they are scaled up. There is also a critical lower threshold for how small you can go. These factors lead to large amounts of needed propellant and large engines, for which you need a large space infrastructure. A Solar System-wide economy is probably needed, as the Project Daedalus report argues [3].
Image: The Project Icarus Ghost Ship: A colossal fusion-propelled interstellar probe
However, there is a different avenue for interstellar travel: going small. If you go small, you need less energy for accelerating the probe and thus less resources. Pioneers of small interstellar missions are Freeman Dyson with his Astrochicken; a living, one kilogram probe, bio-engineered for the space environment [4]. Robert Forward proposed the Starwisp probe in 1985 [5]. A large, ultra-thin sail which rides on a beam of microwaves. Furthermore, Frank Tipler and Ray Kurzweil describe how nano-scale probes could be used for transporting human consciousness to the stars [6, 7].
At the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (I4IS), we wanted to have a fresh look at small interstellar probes, laser sail probes in particular. The last concepts in this area have been developed years ago. How did the situation change in recent years? Are there new, possibly disruptive concepts on the horizon? We think there are. The basic idea is to develop an interstellar mission by combining the following technologies:
- Laser sail propulsion: The spacecraft rides on a laser beam, which is captured by an extremely thin sail [8].
- Small spacecraft technology: Highly miniaturized spacecraft components which are used in CubeSat missions
- Distributed spacecraft: To spread out the payload of a larger spacecraft over several spacecraft, thus, reducing the laser power requirements [9, 10]. The individual spacecraft would then rendezvous at the target star system and collaborate to fulfill their mission objectives. For example, one probe is mainly responsible for communication with the Solar System, another responsible for planetary exploration via distributed sensor networks (smart dust) [11].
- Magnetic sails: A thin superconducting ring's magnetic field deflects the hydrogen in the interstellar medium and decelerates the spacecraft [12].
- Solar power satellites: The laser system shall use space infrastructure which is likely to exist in the next 50 years. Solar power satellites would be temporarily leased to provide the laser system with power to propel the spacecraft.
- Communication systems with external power supply: A critical factor for small interstellar missions is power supply for the communication system. As small spacecraft cannot provide enough power for communicating over these vast distances. Thus, power has to be supplied externally, either by using laser or microwave power from the Solar System during the trip and solar radiation within the target star system [5].
Image: Size comparison between an interplanetary solar sail and the Project Icarus Ghost Ship. Interstellar sail-based spacecraft would be much larger. (Courtesy: Adrian Mann and Kelvin Long)
Bringing all these technologies together, it is possible to imagine a mission which could be realized with technologies which are feasible in the next 10 years and could be in place in the next 50 years: A set of solar power satellites are leased for a couple of years for the mission. A laser system with a huge aperture has been put into a suitable orbit to propel the interstellar, as well as future planetary missions. Thus, the infrastructure can be reused for multiple purposes. The interstellar probes are launched one-by-one.
After decades, the probes start to decelerate by magnetic sails. Each spacecraft charges its sails differently. The first spacecraft decelerates slower than the follow-up probes. Ideally, the spacecraft then arrive at the target star system at the same point in time. Then, the probes start exploring the star system autonomously. They reason about exploration strategies, exchange and share data. Once a suitable exploration target has been chosen, dedicated probes descend to the planetary surface, spreading dust-sized sensor networks onto the pristine land. The data from the network is collected by other spacecraft and transferred back to the spacecraft acting as a communication hub. The hub, powered by the light from extrasolar light sends back the data to us. The result could be the scenario described at the beginning of this article.
Image: Artist's impression of a laser sail probe with a chip-sized payload. (Courtesy: Adrian Mann)
Of course, one of the caveats of such a mission is its complexity. The spacecraft would have to rendezvous precisely over interstellar distances. Furthermore, there are several challenges with laser sail systems, which have been frequently addressed in the literature, for example beam collimation and control. Nevertheless, such a mission architecture has many advantages compared to existing ones: It could be realized by a space infrastructure we could imagine to exist in the next 50 years. The failure of one or more spacecraft would not be catastrophic, as redundancy could easily be built in by launching two or more identical spacecraft.
The elegance of this mission architecture is that all the infrastructure elements can also be used for other purposes. For example, a laser infrastructure could not only be used for an interstellar mission but interplanetary as well. Further applications include an asteroid defense system [20]. The solar power satellites can be used for providing in-space infrastructure with power [18].
Image: Artist's impression of a spacecraft swarm arriving at an exosolar system (Courtesy: Adrian Mann)
How about the feasibility of the individual technologies? Recent progress in various areas looks promising:
- The increased availability of highly sophisticated miniaturized commercial components: smart phones include many components which are needed for a space system, e.g. gyros for attitude determination, a communication system, and a microchip for data-handling. NASA has already flown a couple of "phone-sats"; Satellites which are based on a smart phone [13].
- Advances in distributed satellite networks: Although a single small satellite only has a limited capability, several satellites which cooperate can replace larger space systems. The concept of Federated Satellite Systems (FSS) is currently explored at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as at the Skolkovo Institute of Technology in Russia [14]. Satellites communicate opportunistically and share data and computing capacity. It is basically a cloud computing environment in space.
- Increased viability of solar sail missions. A number of recent missions are based on solar sail technology, e.g. the Japanese IKAROS probe, LightSail-1 of the Planetary Society, and NASA's Sunjammer probe.
- Greg Matloff recently proposed use of Graphene as a material for solar sails [15]. With an areal density of a fraction of a gram and high thermal resistance, this material would be truly disruptive. Currently existing materials have a much higher areal density; a number crucial for measuring the performance of solar sails.
- Material sciences has also advanced to a degree where Graphene layers only a few atoms thick can be manufactured [16]. Thus, manufacturing a solar sail based on extremely thin layers of Graphene is not as far away as it seems.
- Small satellites with a mass of only a few kilograms are increasingly proposed for interplanetary missions. NASA has recently announced the Interplanetary CubeSat Challenge, where teams are invited to develop CubeSat missions to the Moon and even deeper into space (NASA) [17]. Coming advances will thus stretch the capability of CubeSats beyond Low-Earth Orbit.
- Recent proposals for solar power satellites focus on providing space infrastructure with power instead of Earth infrastructure [18, 19]. The reason is quite simple: Solar power satellites are not competitive to most Earth-based alternatives but they are in space. A recent NASA concept by John Mankins proposed the use of a highly modular tulip-shaped space power satellite, supplying geostationary communication satellites with power.
- Large space laser systems have been proposed for asteroid defense [20]
In order to explore various mission architectures and encourage participation by a larger group of people, I4IS has recently announced the Project Dragonfly Competition in the context of the Alpha Centauri Prize [21]. We hope that with the help of this competition, we can find unprecedented mission architectures of truly disruptive capability. Once this goal is accomplished, we can concentrate our efforts on developing individual technologies and test them in near-term missions.
If this all works out, this might be the first time in history that there is a realistic possibility to explore a near-by star system within the 21st or early 22nd century with "modest" resources.
I remember when the original Project Icarus study came out in the 1970s and I was absolutely enthralled with it.
At last, interstellar exploration could be possible, not fantasy.
Then the Icarus came out a couple of years ago. The ship was more advanced, but the size doubled. How is that possible in this age of miniaturization?
I think it's because people love the idea of Battlestar Galactica or U.S.S. Enterprise sized interstellar craft.
You gotta have powerful engines and weapons to cope with angry aliens, right?
Andrea Hein is being smart and paying respect to Robert Foward and Freeman Dyson by writing this study with up to date ideas which encompasses Cube Sat tech and other commercial space company technologies.
Project Dragonfly: The case for small, laser-propelled, distributed probes
Centauri Dreams: Creative Constraints and Starflight
I discovered Karl Schroeder's work when I was researching brown dwarfs some years ago. Who knew that somebody was writing novels about civilizations around these dim objects? Permanence (Tor, 2003) was a real eye-opener, as were the deep-space cultures it described. Schroeder hooked me again with his latest book — he's dealing with a preoccupation of mine, a human presence in the deep space regions between ourselves and the nearest stars, where resources are abundant and dark worlds move far from any sun. How to maintain such a society and allow it to grow into something like an empire? Karl explains the mechanism below. Science fiction fans, of which there are many on Centauri Dreams, will know Karl as the author of many other novels, including Ventus (2000), Lady of Mazes (2005) and Sun of Suns (2006).
by Karl Schroeder
My newest science fiction novel, Lockstep, has just finished its serialization in Analogmagazine, and Tor Books will have it on the bookshelves March 24. Reactions have been pretty favourable—except that I've managed to offend a small but vocal group of my readers. It seems that some people are outraged that I've written an SF story in which faster than light travel is impossible.
I did write Lockstep because I understood that it's not actual starflight that interests most people—it's the romance of a Star Trek or Star Wars-type interstellar civilization they want. Not the reality, but the fantasy. Even so, I misjudged the, well, the fervor with which some people cling to the belief that the lightspeed limit will just somehow, magically and handwavingly, get engineered around.
This is ironic, because the whole point of Lockstep was to find a way to have that Star Wars-like interstellar civilization in reality and not just fantasy. As an artist, I'm familiar with the power of creative constraint to generate ideas, and for Lockstep I put two constraints on myself: 1) No FTL or unknown science would be allowed in the novel. 2) The novel would contain a full-blown interstellar civilization exactly like those you find in books with FTL.
Creativity under constraint is the best kind of creativity; it's the kind that really may take us to the stars someday. In this case, by placing such mutually contradictory — even impossible — restrictions on myself, I was forced into a solution that, in hindsight, is obvious. It is simply this: everyone I know of who has thought about interstellar civilization has thought that the big problem to be solved is the problem of speed. The issue, though (as opposed to the problem), is how to travel to an interstellar destination, spend some time there, and return to the same home you left. Near-c travel solves this problem for you, but not for those you left at home. FTL solves the problem for both you and home, but with the caveat that it's impossible. (Okay, okay, for the outraged among you: as far as we know. To put it more exactly, we can't prove that FTL is impossible any more than we can prove that Santa Claus doesn't exist. I'll concede that.)
Read the rest here…
78,000 People Want To Go To Mars ( With Mars One )
From spacetransportnews.com:
The Mars One organization released this announcement on Tuesday:78,000 sign up for one-way mission to MarsAmersfoort, 7th May 2013 – Just two weeks into the nineteen week application period, more than seventy-eight thousand people have applied to the Mars One astronaut selection program in the hope of becoming a Mars settler in 2023.
Mars One has received applications from over 120 countries. Most applications come from USA (17324), followed by China (10241), United Kingdom (3581), Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Argentina and India.
Bas Lansdorp, Mars One Co-Founder and CEO said: "With seventy-eight thousand applications in two weeks, this is turning out to be the most desired job in history. These numbers put us right on track for our goal of half a million applicants."
"Mars One is a mission representing all humanity and its true spirit will be justified only if people from the entire world are represented. I'm proud that this is exactly what we see happening," he said.
As part of the application every applicant is required to explain his/her motivation behind their decision go to Mars in an one minute video. Many applicants are choosing to publish this video on the Mars One website. These are openly accessible on applicants.mars-one.com.
"Applicants we have received come from a very wide range of personalities, professions and ages. This is significant because what we are looking for is not restricted to a particular background. From Round 1 we will take forward the most committed, creative, resilient and motivated applicants," said Dr. Norbert Kraft, Mars One Chief Medical Officer.
Mars One will continue to receive online applications until August 31st 2013. From all the applicants in Round 1, regional reviewers will select around 50-100 candidates for Round 2 in each of the 300 geographic regions in the world that Mars One has identified.
Four rounds make the selection process, which will come to an end in 2015; Mars One will then employ 28-40 candidates, who will train for around 7 years. Finally an audience vote will elect one of groups in training to be the envoys of humanity to Mars.
I'm not surprised most of the applicants are from the U.S., but the number of applicants from China does a little bit.
Maybe it shouldn't though, the Chinese maybe looking for lebensraum ( elbow room ), what with over a billion people and all.
Mars might be an appealing bit of real estate to them.
Mars One receives 78,000 applications in 2 weeks for Mars settlement
Falcon Heavy or Space Launch System For Lunar Exploration ?
From America Space:
There have been occasional suggestions that NASA should scrap its Space Launch System (SLS) in favor of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy for fulfilling its beyond low-Earth orbit needs [1]. The claim forwarded by some is that the as-yet-untested-and-unflown 53 mt low-Earth orbit (LEO) (200 km @ 28°) Falcon Heavy is now "cheaper" than the as-yet-untested-and-unflown SLS. Furthermore, canceling the SLS would supposedly save NASA $10 billion—money that could otherwise be used to fund such programs as the Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap), to conduct a flight test of Orion on a Falcon Heavy, and to focus on building a small-scale space station in the area near the Moon. One issue not addressed by proponents of canceling SLS is whether it is a good idea to couple a nation's human exploration spaceflight capabilities to a private company. An issue which appears to be altogether ignored, is the Falcon Heavy's small lunar payload capability and the impact this would have on an already complex and risky endeavor such as lunar exploration.
According to SpaceX, the Falcon 9 Heavy, also called the Falcon Heavy, will have a 53 mt (metric ton) payload capacity to LEO of 200 km with an inclination of 28° [2]. Such a LEO payload capability will be impressive, allowing SpaceX to launch nearly twice the payload of a Delta IV Heavy or an Atlas V, and to do so more cheaply than either. But when it comes to launching payload to a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) or beyond, the Falcon 9 Heavy falls far short of either the Delta or Atlas launchers. With a GTO payload of barely over 12 mt, the Falcon 9 Heavy is at least 1 metric ton, or 1,000 kg, under what either the Delta IV Heavy or Atlas V can deliver to the same point in space.
The Falcon 9 Heavy is, much like United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy, a triple-bodied version of the company's Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Photo Credit: SpaceX
The Falcon 9 Heavy's GTO payload deficiency relative to the existing EELV launch vehicles has other down-stream effects as to its appropriateness for beyond-Earth orbit (BEO) crewed exploration. It is safe to assume that the Falcon Heavy's low-lunar orbit (LLO) payload capacity will not top much above 10 mt [3]. How will the Falcon 9 Heavy's meager LLO payload capacity enable a meaningful return to the Moon? And why even talk about the Falcon Heavy as a possible launcher of crewed lunar exploration when each of the Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V launchers can send over 1,000 kg more than the Falcon Heavy to the Moon? Moreover, while the Delta IV and Atlas V have extensive flight histories, the Falcon Heavy has no such experience.
Advocates of using the Falcon Heavy don't just want to rewrite who takes us beyond-Earth orbit, but more fundamentally how such missions are built. Reliance upon the Falcon Heavy for launching a beyond-Earth exploration program means some hard choices as to mission architecture. Traditionally, crewed exploration beyond low-Earth orbit has focused on minimizing complexity, and therefore risk and cost, by using a heavy-lift rocket (HLV). The logic behind using an HLV for lunar exploration in the past was that fewer launches correlated to less risk. The Falcon Heavy's 10 mt capability means that any lunar exploration program will have to be one of assembling pieces/parts in low-Earth orbit, where the Falcon Heavy's (LEO) 53 mt payload capacity can really shine. Some have claimed that centering a beyond-Earth exploration program on the Falcon Heavy does not mean ending the Orion spacecraft program. They point this out because Orion is the only spacecraft designed from the ground up for beyond-Earth exploration. Certainly, a Falcon Heavy can place an Orion crewed and service module in low-Earth orbit. But several additional launches will be needed to send Orion and her crew to the Moon. A lunar crewed mission using the Falcon Heavy would mean assembling, at necessary LEO locations, a crewed vehicle, a lander, a trans-lunar injection stage, a stage to get the crewed spacecraft and lander into LLO, and possibly a separate stage to enable the crewed spacecraft to return to Earth [4].
While supporters of an all-commercial approach frequently tout the company's laudable accomplishments, they just as frequently ignore the limitations of both the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle and the Dragon spacecraft. Photo Credit: SpaceX
One problem with a non-HLV approach to lunar exploration is that if a replacement Falcon Heavy and payload are not handy, any launch failure could very well mean a scrubbed mission. So a non-HLV approach necessarily means an inventory of not just a spare Falcon Heavy, but of duplicate spaceflight hardware—or designing hardware and refueling stations such that a delay of weeks or months would have only a marginal impact on the mission. Solving all of these unknown-unknowns (or unk-unks in engineering speak) associated with multiple launches, assembling a mission in LEO, in-space refueling at an orbiting location, among others flowing from a non-HLV approach to beyond-Earth exploration, could see the cost advantage of using the relatively unproven Falcon Heavy largely, if not completely, evaporate.
A beyond-Earth exploration program using the Falcon Heavy in an HLV architecture has its own downsides and associated costs. In order to enable the Falcon 9 Heavy to be a capable beyond low-Earth orbit launcher, funds will certainly be needed to create a new cryogenic second-stage. This will be needed because, in its current configuration, a Falcon 9 Heavy could not even launch one 11.6 mt Unity node module, much less a 20 mt Bigelow BA 330 Nautilus module. Even with a brand new second-stage, reliance upon the Falcon 9 Heavy to build, visit, and maintain a lunar orbiting outpost will dictate doing so in very small chunks; the number of launches will then begin to add-up, as will the complexity, risk, and cost. A Falcon Heavy cannot place an Orion spacecraft even in high-Earth, much less lunar, orbit. So reliance upon the Falcon 9 Heavy for beyond low-Earth missions in an HLV-based lunar mission architecture would only set NASA up to cancel Orion and go with Dragon for our nation's crewed space exploration needs.
While it may be true that the Dragon spacecraft has a heatshield capable of allowing the spacecraft safe reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, little else of Dragon is crew, much less lunar mission, capable. SpaceX's Dragon is currently a participant in NASA's commercial crew and cargo programs. One goal of NASA's commercial crew program is to enable spacecraft built and operated by commercial space companies to get crews to and from the International Space Station by late 2017. But the requirements for a crewed spacecraft tailored for low-Earth orbit are different than those for beyond-Earth orbit. For one, a LEO capable spacecraft need only be capable of hours of operation, where a lunar spacecraft needs a capability of days. This means that the use of the Falcon Heavy as a means to returning humans to the Moon very likely means funding further enhancements, and verifying those enhancements to the Dragon spacecraft. As with over 90 percent of the funding for Falcon 9 and Dragon, this additional financial burden would fall upon NASA's, and therefore the U.S. taxpayer's, shoulders. Even with an enhanced Falcon Heavy launcher and Dragon spacecraft, more than one Falcon Heavy launch would still be needed to support a crewed lunar landing mission. Several Falcon Heavy launches would be needed to build a lunar orbiting outpost.
NASA's SLS has the full support, to include funding, of Congress. As such, efforts to cancel the system in lieu of one that favors the company that SpaceX supporters approve of is not likely to occur. Image Credit: NASA
Or NASA could send a crewed lunar mission or build a lunar outpost with far fewer SLS launches. That's because the very first iteration of the SLS, the Block I, will carry twice the payload of a Falcon Heavy to the Moon. The SLS Block II will have a lunar payload capacity nearly 3–4 times that of the Falcon Heavy, depending upon what engines are selected for the SLS's advanced booster.
Beyond the SLS's substantial payload advantage for lunar missions, the question of cost remains. Are 3 or 4 Falcon Heavy launches really cheaper than just one SLS Block II launch? That is a hard question to answer given that both launchers are still effectively "paper" rockets. In factoring launch costs, there is the cost of the launch vehicle, the launch pad, launch support, and post-launch management, just to name a few.
The bigger problem for those wishing to end the Space Launch System program is that it is currently ahead of schedule. According to John Elbon, Boeing VP & General Manager, Space Exploration, "We're on budget, ahead of schedule. There's incredible progress going on with that rocket" [5]. Canceling a rocket that is ahead of schedule would be difficult at best. Given that Congress has, over three votes, not only supported SLS but increased its funding over amounts sought by the Obama Administration, the odds of opponents getting SLS canceled are slim-to-none.
Space Launch System opponents suggest that the SLS program should cancel until a mission requiring such a rocket is identified. John Shannon, also with Boeing, recently stated, "This 'SLS doesn't have a mission' is a smokescreen that's been put out there by people who would like to see that [program's] budget go to their own pet projects. SLS is every mission beyond low Earth orbit. The fact that NASA has not picked one single mission is kind of irrelevant" [6]. It bears mentioning that a good part of the reason there is no meaningful mission for the Orion-SLS is because the Obama Administration has not agreed with Congress that, as Congress noted in its 2010 NASA Authorization Act, cislunar space is the next step in our efforts beyond Earth and that the SLS is an integral part of that step.
Moreover, both short- and long-term missions for SLS have emerged in recent months. Within the 2014 FY Budget Proposal Request, NASA was directed to retrieve an asteroid, place it in lunar orbit, and then send astronauts to study it. The vehicle of choice is SLS. During a recent interview, NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems in the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate Dan Dumbacher stated on AmericaSpace that the long-term mission for SLS was to send astronauts to Mars.
Mr. Jillhouse sings the acolades of the Space Launch System as others sing them about SpaceX's Falcon9 rockets. What he fails to mention is the SLS's massive program slippages and muti-billion dollar cost overruns, versus commercial's million dollar overruns and schedule slippages. It's not even in the same ballgame, let alone ballpark.
Also the point should be that NASA should've bid the SLS job out in order to save the taxpayers money, but the function of SLS isn't primarily for beyond Earth orbit exploration.
It's to provide jobs in states that have NASA centers. And that's why these projects are perpetually underfunded, just enough money is sent in order to keep people employed as long as the politicians can make it possible.
Maybe in the end the SLS will get finished and work as advertised. If I live long enough.
Skylab II
From Space.com:
NASA's first manned outpost in deep space may be a repurposed rocket part, just like the agency's first-ever astronaut abode in Earth orbit.
With a little tinkering, the upper-stage hydrogen propellant tank of NASA's huge Space Launch System rocket would make a nice and relatively cheap deep-space habitat, some researchers say. They call the proposed craft "Skylab II," an homage to the 1970s Skylab space station that was a modified third stage of a Saturn V moon rocket.
"This idea is not challenging technology," said Brand Griffin, an engineer with Gray Research, Inc., who works with the Advanced Concepts Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
"It's just trying to say, 'Is this the time to be able to look at existing assets, planned assets and incorporate those into what we have as a destination of getting humans beyond LEO [low-Earth orbit]?'" Griffin said Wednesday (March 27) during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group.
A roomy home in deep space
NASA is developing the Space Launch System (SLS) to launch astronauts toward distant destinations such as near-Earth asteroids and Mars. The rocket's first test flight is slated for 2017, and NASA wants it to start lofting crews by 2021.
The SLS will stand 384 feet tall (117 meters) in its biggest ("evolved") incarnation, which will be capable of blasting 130 metric tons of payload to orbit. Its upper-stage hydrogen tank is big, too, measuring 36.1 feet tall by 27.6 feet wide (11.15 m by 8.5 m).
The tank's dimensions yield an internal volume of 17,481 cubic feet (495 cubic m) — roughly equivalent to a two-story house. That's much roomier than a potential deep-space habitat derived from modules of the International Space Station (ISS), which are just 14.8 feet (4.5 m) wide, Griffin said.
The tank-based Skylab II could accommodate a crew of four comfortably and carry enough gear and food to last for several years at a time without requiring a resupply, he added. Further, it would launch aboard the SLS in a single piece, whereas ISS-derived habitats would need to link up multiple components in space.
Because of this, Skylab II would require relatively few launches to establish and maintain, Griffin said. That and the use of existing SLS-manufacturing infrastructure would translate into big cost savings — a key selling point in today's tough fiscal climate.
"We will have the facilities in place, the tooling, the personnel, all the supply chain and everything else," Griffin said.
He compared the overall concept with the original Skylab space station, which was built in a time of declining NASA budgets after the boom years of the Apollo program.
Skylab "was a project embedded under the Apollo program," Griffin said. "In many ways, this could follow that same pattern. It could be a project embedded under SLS and be able to, ideally, not incur some of the costs of program startup."
There has been much caterwauling in the space advocacy community about the Space Launch System ( ne, "The Senate Launch System" ) concerning its cost and lack of purpose and/or destinations.
Of course, the thing was designed by Congress in order to fund a jobs program in the NASA Centers for the good voters of those districts. But it's a seriously underfunded program, with just enough money to keep the civil servants of NASA employed, with just enough contractor support to keep them happy.
In the meantime, ideas like Skylab II, the Spacehab at EML-2 and the asteroid capture scheme rear their ugly heads and claim they're economical in these austeric times.
My money is still on Elon Musk, Bob Bigelow, Dennis Tito and company.
Advanced Oort Cloud Civilisations?
From Centauri Dreams:
Jules Verne once had the notion of a comet grazing the Earth and carrying off a number of astounded people, whose adventures comprise the plot of the 1877 novel Off on a Comet. It's a great yarn that was chosen by Hugo Gernsback to be reprinted as a serial in the first issues of his new magazine Amazing Stories back in 1926, but with a diameter of 2300 kilometers, Verne's comet was much larger than anything we've actually observed. Comets tend to be small but they make up for it in volume, with an estimated 100 billion to several trillion thought to exist in the Oort Cloud. All that adds up to a total mass of several times the Earth's.
Of course, coming up with mass estimates is, as with so much else about the Oort Cloud, a tricky business. Paul R. Weissman noted a probable error of about one order of magnitude when he produced the above estimate in 1983. What we are safe in saying is something that has caught Freeman Dyson's attention: While most of the mass and volume in the galaxy is comprised of stars and planets, most of the area actually belongs to asteroids and comets. There's a lot of real estate out there, and we'll want to take advantage of it as we move into the outer Solar System and beyond.
Comets and Resources
Embedded with rock, dust and organic molecules, comets are composed of water ice as well as frozen gases like methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and an assortment of compounds containing nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur. Porous and undifferentiated, these bodies are malleable enough to make them interesting from the standpoint of resource extraction. Richard P. Terra wrote about the possibilities in a 1991 article published in Analog:
This light fragile structure means that the resources present in the comet nuclei will be readily accessible to any human settlers. The porous mixture of dust and ice would offer little mechanical resistance, and the two components could easily be separated by the application of heat. Volatiles could be further refined through fractional distillation while the dust, which has a high content of iron and other ferrous metals, could easily be manipulated with magnetic fields.
Put a human infrastructure out in the realm of the comets, in other words, and resource extraction should be a workable proposition. Terra talks about colonies operating in the Oort Cloud but we can also consider it, as he does, a proving ground for even deeper space technologies aimed at crossing the gulf between the stars. Either way, as permanent settlements or as way stations offering resources on millennial journeys, comets should be plentiful given that the Oort Cloud may extend half the distance to Alpha Centauri. Terra goes on:
Little additional crushing or other mechanical processing of the dust would be necessary, and its fine, loose-grained structure would make it ideal for subsequent chemical processing and refining. Comet nuclei thus represent a vast reservoir of easily accessible materials: water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane, and a variety of metals and complex organics.
Energy by Starlight
Given that comets probably formed on the outer edges of the solar nebula, their early orbits would have been more or less in the same plane as the rest of the young system, but gravitational interactions with passing stars would have randomized their orbital inclinations, eventually producing a sphere of the kind Jan Oort first postulated back in 1950. Much of this is speculative, because we have little observational evidence to go on, but the major part of the cometary shell probably extends from 40,000 to 60,000 AU, while a projected inner Oort population extending from just beyond the Kuiper Belt out to 10,000 AU may have cometary orbits more or less in the plane of the ecliptic. Out past 10,000 AU the separation between comets is wide, perhaps about 20 AU, meaning that any communities that form out here will be incredibly isolated.
Image: An artist's rendering of the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. Credit: NASA/Donald K. Yeomans.
Whether humans can exploit cometary resources this far from home will depend on whether or not they can find sources of energy. In a paper called "Fastships and Nomads," presented at the Conference on Interstellar Migration held at Los Alamos in 1983, Eric Jones and Ben Finney give a nod to non-renewable energy sources like deuterium, given that heavy elements like uranium will be hard to come by. Indeed, a typical comet, in Richard Terra's figures, holds between 50,000 and 100,000 metric tons of deuterium, enough to power early settlement and mining.
But over the long haul, Jones and Finney are interested in keeping colonies alive through renewable resources, and that means starlight. The researchers talk about building vast mirrors using aluminum from comets, with each 1 MW mirror about the size of the continental United States. Now here's a science fiction setting with punch, as the two describe it:
Although the mirrors would be tended by autonomous maintenance robots, the nomads would have to live nearby in case something went wrong… Although we could imagine that the several hundred people who could be supported by the resources of a single comet might live in a single habitat, the mirrors supporting that community would be spread across about 150,000 km. Trouble with a mirror or robot on the periphery of the mirror array would mean a long trip, several hours at least. It would make more sense if the community were dispersed in smaller groups so that trouble could be reached in a shorter time. There are also social reasons for expecting the nomad communities to be divided into smaller co-living groups.
Jones and Finney go on to point out that humans tend to work best in groups of about a dozen adults, whether in the form of hunter/gatherer bands, army platoons, bridge clubs or political cells. This observation of behavior leads them to speculate that bands of about 25 men, women and children would live together in a large habitat — think again of an O'Neill cylinder — built out of cometary materials, from which they would tend a mirror farm with the help of robots and computers. Each small group would tend a mirror farm perhaps 30,000 kilometers across.
The picture widens beyond this to include the need for larger communities that would occasionally come together, helping to avoid the genetic dangers of inbreeding and providing a larger social environment. Thus we might have about 500 individuals in clusters of 20 cometary bands which would stay in contact and periodically meet. Jones and Finney consider the band-tribe structure to be the smallest grouping that seems practical for any human community. Who would such a community attract — outcasts, dissidents, adventurers? And how would Oort Cloud settlers react to the possibility of going further still, to another star?
While by no means is this is a new theory, ( note the Jules Verne story ), it presents the scenario of the very slow spreading of intelligent biological life through-out the Galaxy ( see Slow Galactic Colonization, Zoo Hypothesis and the Fermi Paradox ).
Now here's a thought; could a potential alien Oort Cloud civilization be the basis of the Ancient Astronaut Theory and the legends of the Sumerian Gods, the Anunnaki?
There's no hard evidence of that of course, but there are Pluto-sized and larger objects in the Kuiper Belt glowing in the infrared, a sign that was said to represent a Dyson Sphere type civilisation.
Either these are natural objects such as Brown Dwarf stars, or potential alien civilisations whom don't care whether they are detected in the infrared or not.
And that's disturbing.
Did Voyager 1 Leave The Solar System?
From nytimes.com:
For about three hours on Wednesday, Voyager 1 had left the solar system — before a rewritten news release headline pulled it back in. Voyager 1, one of two spacecraft NASA launched in 1977 on a grand tour of the outer planets, is now nearly 11.5 billion miles from the Sun, speeding away at 38,000 miles per hour. In a paper accepted by the journal Geophysical Review Letters, William R. Webber of New Mexico State University and Frank B. McDonald of the University of Maryland reported that on Aug. 25 last year, the spacecraft observed a sudden change in the mix of cosmic rays hitting it.
Cosmic rays are high-speed charged particles, mostly protons. Voyager 1's instruments recorded nearly a doubling of cosmic rays from outside the solar system, while the intensity of cosmic rays that had been trapped in the outer solar system dropped by 90 percent.
The American Geophysical Union, publisher of the journal, sent out the news Wednesday morning: "Voyager 1 has left the solar system." NASA officials, surprised, countered with a contrary statement from Edward C. Stone, the Voyager project scientist. "It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space," Dr. Stone said. He said that the critical indicator would be a change in the direction of the magnetic field, not cosmic rays, for marking the outermost boundary of the solar system. In their paper, Dr. Webber and Dr. McDonald (who died only six days after Voyager observed the shift in cosmic rays) did not claim that Voyager 1 was in interstellar space, but had entered a part of the solar system they called the "heliocliff." The geophysical union then sent out another e-mail with the same article but a milder headline: "Voyager 1 has entered a new region of space."
Eventually Voyager 1 will leave the Solar System and there will be no dispute about it.
In the meantime, mainstream science will learn and post about the outer edges of the Solar System as Voyager 1 creeps along at .00002 lightspeed ( 37,500 mph ) .
Of course there are those in mainstream media and science who believe that mankind will never leave the Solar System because they proclaim that spacecraft will never be built that go faster than that.
Already the Pluto probe New Horizon traveling at 54,500 mph is breaking Voyager's speed record and will probably leave the Solar System before Voyager does!
I'm certain in 100 years star probes will be launched toward Alpha Centauri and Tau Ceti that reach appreciable percentages of lightspeed bypassing all of our old interplanetary probes and perhaps in several centuries, mankind's interstellar colonies will be picking up these old probes to study them, like old time capsules!
Where's Voyager 1? That Depends.
Hat tip to the Daily Grail.
To Ply The Martian Way
From Centauri Dreams:
Existential risks, as discussed here yesterday, seem to be all around us, from the dangers of large impactors to technologies running out of control and super-volcanoes that can cripple our civilization. We humans tend to defer thinking on large-scale risks while tightly focusing on personal risk. Even the recent events near Chelyabinsk, while highlighting the potential danger of falling objects, also produced a lot of fatalistic commentary, on the lines of 'if it's going to happen, there's nothing we can do about it.' Some media outlets did better than others with this.
Risk to individuals is understandably more vivid. When Apollo 8 left Earth orbit for the Moon in 1968, the sense of danger was palpable. After all, these astronauts were leaving an orbital regime that we were beginning to understand and were, by the hour, widening the distance between themselves and our planet. But even Apollo 8 operated within a sequenced framework of events. Through Mercury to Gemini and Apollo, we were building technologies one step at a time that all led to a common goal. No one denied the dangers faced by every crew that eventually went to the Moon, but technologies were being tested and refined as the missions continued.
Inspiration Mars is proposing something that on balance feels different. As described in yesterday's news conference (see Millionaire plans to send couple to Mars in 2018. Is that realistic? for more), the mission would be a flyby, using a free return trajectory rather than braking into Martian orbit. The trip would last 501 days and would be undertaken by a man and a woman, probably a middle-aged married couple. Jonathan Clark, formerly of NASA and now chief medical officer for Inspiration Mars, addresses the question of risk head-on: "The real issue here is understanding the risk in an informed capacity – the crew would understand that, the team supporting them would understand that." Multi-millionaire Dennis Tito, a one-time space tourist who heads up Inspiration Mars, says the mission will launch in 2018.
Image: A manned Mars flyby may just be doable. But is the 2018 date pushing us too hard? Image credit: NASA/JPL.
We'll hear still more about all this when the results of a mission-feasibility study are presented next weekend at the 2013 IEEE Aerospace Conference in Montana. Given the questions raised by pushing a schedule this tightly, there will be much to consider. Do we have time to create a reliable spacecraft that can offer not only 600 cubic feet of living space but another 600 for cargo, presumably a SpaceX Dragon capsule mated to a Bigelow inflatable module? Are we ready to expose a crew to interplanetary radiation hazards without further experience with the needed shielding strategies? And what of the heat shield and its ability to protect the crew during high-speed re-entry at velocities in the range of 50,000 kilometers per hour?
For that matter, what about Falcon Heavy, the launch vehicle discussed in the feasibility analysis Inspiration Mars has produced for the conference? This is a rocket that has yet to fly.
No, this doesn't feel much like Apollo 8. It really feels closer to the early days of aviation, when attention converged on crossing the Atlantic non-stop and pilots like Rene Fonck, Richard Byrd, Charles Nungesser and Charles Lindbergh queued up for the attempt. As with Inspiration Mars, these were privately funded attempts, in this case designed to win the Orteig Prize ($25,000), though for the pilots involved it was the accomplishment more than the paycheck that mattered. Given the problems of engine reliability at the time, it took a breakthrough technology — the Wright J-5C Whirlwind engine — to get Lindbergh and subsequent flights across.
Inspiration Mars is looking to sell media rights and sponsorships as part of the fund-raising package for the upcoming mission, which is already being heavily backed by Tito. I'm wondering if there is a breakthrough technology equivalent to the J-5C to help this mission along, because everything I read about it makes it appear suicidal. The 2018 date is forced by a favorable alignment between Mars and the Earth that will not recur until 2031, so the haste is understandable. The idea is just the kind of daring, improbable stunt that fires the imagination and forces sudden changes in perspective, and of course I wish it well. But count me a serious skeptic on the question of whether this mission will be ready to fly on the appointed date.
And if it's not? I like the realism in the concluding remarks of the feasibility study:
A manned Mars free-return mission is a useful precursor mission to other planned Mars missions. It will develop and demonstrate many critical technologies and capabilities needed for manned Mars orbit and landing missions. The technology and other capabilities needed for this mission are needed for any future manned Mars missions. Investments in pursuing this development now would not be wasted even if this mission were to miss its launch date.
Exactly so, and there would be much development in the interim. The study goes on:
Although the next opportunity after this mission wouldn't be for about another 13 years, any subsequent manned Mars mission would benefit from the ECLSS [Environmental Control and Life Support System], TPS [Thermal Protection System], and other preparation done for this mission. In fact, often by developing technology early lessons are learned that can reduce overall program costs. Working on this mission will also be a means to train the skilled workforce needed for the future manned Mars missions.
These are all good reasons for proceeding, leaving the 2018 date as a high-risk, long-shot option. While Inspiration Mars talks to potential partners in the aerospace industry and moves ahead with an eye on adapting near-Earth technologies for the mission, a whiff of the old space race is in the air. "If we don't fly in 2018, the next low-hanging fruit is in '31. We'd better have our crew trained to recognize other flags," Tito is saying. "They're going to be out there."
In 1968, faced with a deadline within the decade, NASA had to make a decision on risk that was monumental — Dennis Tito reminded us at the news conference that Apollo 8 came only a year after the first test launch of the Saturn 5. Can 2018 become as tangible a deadline as 1970 was for a nation obsessed with a Moon landing before that year? If so, the technologies just might be ready, and someone is going to have to make a white-knuckle decision about the lives of two astronauts. If Inspiration Mars can get us to that point, that decision won't come easy, but whoever makes it may want to keep the words of Seneca in mind: "It is not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It is because we dare not venture that they are difficult."
There are a lot of nay-sayers out yonder decrying Tito's idea as suicidal and a waste of money. But as recently as a couple of months ago questionnaires were sent out asking for volunteers to sign up for a one way trip to Mars (Mars One), even if there's a better than even chance of dying at any moment of it.
The results were astounding.
Tito's idea of sending an older married couple is nothing short of public opinion genius and if successful, could be the format of any future Mars colonization efforts.
Not to mention the technologies needed for the crossing.
Habitability vs. Colonizability
From kschroeder.com:
Habitability is the measure of highest value in planet-hunting. But should it be?
Kepler and the other planet-finding missions have begun to bear fruit. We now know that most stars have planets, and that a surprising percentage will have Earth-sized worlds in their habitable zone–the region where things are not too hot and not too cold, where life can develop. Astronomers are justly fascinated by this region and what they can find there. We have the opportunity, in our lifetimes, to learn whether life exists outside our own solar system, and maybe even find out how common it is.
We have another opportunity, too–one less talked-about by astronomers but a common conversation among science fiction writers. For the first time in history, we may be able to identify worlds we could move to and live on.
As we think about this second possibility, it's important to bear in mind that habitability and colonizability are not the same thing. Nobody seems to be doing this; I can't find any term but habitability used to describe the exoplanets we're finding. Whether a planet is habitable according to the current definition of the term has nothing to do with whether humans could settle there. So, the term applies to places that are vitally important for study; but it doesn't necessarily apply to places we might want to go.Whether a planet is habitable according to the current definition of the term has nothing to do with whether humans could settle there.
To see the difference between habitability and colonizability, we can look at two very different planets: Gliese 581g and Alpha Centauri Bb. Neither of these is confirmed to exist, but we have enough data to be able to say a little about what they're like if they do. Gliese 581g is a super-earth orbiting in the middle of its star's habitable zone. This means liquid water could well form on its surface, which makes it a habitable world according to the current definition.
Centauri Bb, on the other hand, orbits very close to its star, and its surface temperature is likely high enough to render one half of it (it's tidally locked to its sun, like our moon is to Earth) a magma sea. Alpha Centauri Bb is most definitely not habitable.
So Gliese 581g is habitable and Centauri Bb is not; but does this mean that 581g is more colonizable than Bb? Actually, no.
Because 581g is a super-earth, the gravity on its surface is going to be greater than Earth's. Estimates vary, but the upper end of the range puts it at 1.7g. If you weigh 150 lbs on Earth, you'd weigh 255 lbs on 581g. This is with your current musculature; convert all your body fat to muscle and you might just be able to get around without having to use leg braces or a wheelchair. However, your cardiovascular system is going to be under a permanent strain on this world–and there's no way to engineer your habitat to comfortably compensate.
On the other hand, Centauri Bb is about the same size as Earth. Its surface gravity is likely to be around the same. Since it's tidally locked, half of its surface is indeed a lava hell–but the other hemisphere will be cooler, and potentially much cooler. I wouldn't bet there's any breathable atmosphere or open water there, but as a place to build sealed domes to live in, it's not off the table.
Also consider that it's easier to get stuff onto and off of the surface of Bb than the surface of a high-gravity super-earth. Add to that the very thick atmosphere that 581g is likely to have, and human subsistence on 581g–even if it's a paradise for local life–is looking more and more awkward.
Doubtless 581g is a better candidate for life; but to me, Centauri Bb looks more colonizable.
A definition of colonizability
We've got a fairly good definition of what makes a planet habitable: stable temperatures suitable for the formation of liquid water. Is it possible to develop an equally satisfying (or more satisfying) definition of colonizability for a planet?
Yes–and here it is. Firstly, a colonizable world has to have an accessible surface. A super-earth with an incredibly thick atmosphere and a surface gravity of 3 or 4 gees just isn't colonizable, however much life there may be on it.
Secondly, and more subtly, the right elements have to be accessible on the planet for it to be colonizable. This seems a bit puzzling at first, but what if Centauri Bb is the only planet in the Centauri system, and it has only trace elements of Nitrogen in its composition? It's not going to matter how abundant everything else is. A planet like this–a star system like this–cannot support a colony of earthly life forms. Nitrogen is a critical component of biological life, at least our flavour of it.
In an article entitled "The Age of Substitutibility", published in Science in 1978, H.E. Goeller and A.M. Weinberg proposed an artificial mineral they called Demandite. It comes in two forms. A molecule of industrial demandite would contain all the elements necessary for industrial manufacturing and construction, in the proportions that you'd get if you took, say, an average city and ground it up into a fine pulp. There're about 20 elements in industrial demandite including carbon, iron, sodium, chlorine etc. Biological demandite, on the other hand, is made up almost entirely of just six elements: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. (If you ground up an entire ecosystem and looked at the proportions of these elements making it up, you could in fact find an existing molecule that has exactly the same proportions. It's called cellulose.)
Thirdly, there must be a manageable flow of energy at the surface. The place can be hot or cold, but it has to be possible for us to move heat around. You can't really do that at the surface of Venus, for instance; it's 800 degrees everywhere on the ground so your air conditioning spends an insane amount of energy just overcoming this thermal inertia. Access to a gradient of temperature or energy is what makes physical work possible.
Obviously things like surface pressure, stellar intensity, distance from Earth etc. play big parts, but these are the main three factors that I can see. It should be instantly obvious that they have almost nothing to do with how far the planet is from its primary. There is no 'colonizable zone' similar to a 'habitable zone' around any given star. The judgment has to be made on a world by world basis.
Note that by this definition, Mars is marginally colonizable. Why? Not because of its temperature or low air pressure, but because it's very low in Nitrogen, at least at the surface. The combination of Mars and Ceres may make a colonizable unit, if Ceres has a good supply of Nitrogen in its makeup–and this idea of combo environments being colonizable complicates the picture. We're unlikely to be able to detect an object the size of Ceres around Alpha Centauri, so long-distance elimination of a system as a candidate for colonizability is going to be difficult. Conversely, if we can detect the presence of all the elements necessary for life and industry on a roughly Earth-sized planet, regardless of whether it's in its star's habitable zone, we may have a candidate for colonizability.
The colonizability of an accessible planet with a good temperature gradient can be rated according to how well its composition matches the compositions of industrial and biological demandite. We can get very precise with this scale, and we probably should. It, and not habitability, is the true measure of which worlds we might wish to visit.
To sum up, I'm proposing that we add a second measure to the existing scale of habitability when studying exoplanets. The habitability of a planet actually says nothing about how attractive it might be for us to visit. Colonizability is the missing metric for judging the value of planets around other stars.
This raises the ethical question of at which point do we as a race change the environment of an alien world's biology in order to suit our needs?
Do we engage in biological genicide to seed a planet with Earth-life, or do we adapt ourselves to suit the exoplanet's environment?
Or do we move on to another planet that is more "colonizable" as Schroeder suggests and totally build a habitat from scratch?
A tale of two worlds: habitable, or colonizable?
Hat tip to Centauri Dreams.
Happenings at the Skinwalker Ranch
Gary S. Bekkum, government researcher and author of Lies, Spies and Polygraph Tape, posts quite frequently about his special brand of UFO, alien threat theories and government involvement. Lately Robert Bigelow, the Skinwalker Ranch and U.S. government alphabet soup agencies have been items of interest on his site. I find his special brand of UFO/Alien theories refreshing and provide just enough out-of-this-world science to maintain plausibility:
(Spies, Lies and Polygraph Tape) — In the 1990s, aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow purchased a remote ranch in Utah where strange paranormal experiences had become a way of life. Bigelow's National Institute Discovery Science (NIDS) team soon descended on the ranch in search of an alleged source behind the strange stories told by the previous owner.
The attack, although not unexpected, was intense if brief.
According to sources, one of Bigelow's scientists experienced a close encounter of the most unnerving kind.
Like the smoke monster on the fictional ABC TV series "Lost," an eerie fog had appeared, described as "a multiple intelligence manifested in the form of a dark shadow or cloud-type effect which had an unusual turbulence effect when it shrunk to a point and disappeared."
We approached Bigelow adviser Dr. Eric Davis, a physicist who had, in 2001-2003, surveyed the field of teleportation, including reports of supernatural teleportation, while under contract by the U.S. Air Force.
With regard to Skinwalker-like reports of anomalous mind-matter interactions, Davis advised the Air Force, "We will need a physics theory of consciousness and psychotronics, along with more experimental data, in order to test … and discover the physical mechanisms that lay behind the psychotronic manipulation of matter. [Psychic] P-Teleportation, if verified, would represent a phenomenon that could offer potential high-payoff military, intelligence and commercial applications. This phenomenon could generate a dramatic revolution in technology, which would result from a dramatic paradigm shift in science. Anomalies are the key to all paradigm shifts!"
Davis told us, "NIDS folded in October 2004 and ceased routine intensive staff visits to the ranch back in 2001. I was the team leader from 1999-2001."
"There were multiple voices that spoke in unison telepathically," Davis candidly explained, regarding the Skinwalker attack, "The voices were monotone males with a very terse, threatening tone … Four senses were in their control so there was no odor, sound, smell, or touch, and overall body motion was frozen (as in the muscles that would not respond). Afterwards, when completely freed from this event — after the dark shadow disappeared — there was no lingering or residual odors, sounds, etc. in the immediate environment."
Was Bob Bigelow's remote ranch possessed by an evil supernatural entity?
"How do you interpret that?" I asked Davis. "Sounds like the Exorcist?"
"It does sound like it," Davis responded, "But it wasn't in the category of demonic possession. More like an intelligence giving a warning to the staff by announcing its presence and that they (the staff) were being watched by this presence. Demonic possessions are not short lived nor as benign as this, and they always have a religious context."
What, exactly, was behind the reported experiences at Skinwalker Ranch? Was an unknown and highly capable and intelligent entity guarding its territory?
This is extremely interesting, because as I was perusing the InnerTubes this morning, I ran across various things DARPA was working on and some of them were telepathic research ideas. I wonder if Bekkum's "Core Story" theory of government involvement in aliens and UFOs are an influence on such researches?
I'd like to open up a discussion talking about manipulating the mind & body using genetic engineering & cybernetic implants (FACT VS FICTION). This may sound a bit far fetch as there are many fiction stories regarding this type of subject, although fiction can reveal truth that reality obscures.
What does the encyclopaedia tell us about Supersoldiers?
Supersoldier is a term often used to describe a soldier that operates beyond normal human limits or abilities. Supersoldiers are usually heavily augmented, either through eugenics (especially selective breeding), genetic engineering, cybernetic implants, drugs, brainwashing, traumatic events, an extreme training regimen (usually with high casualty rates, and often starting from birth or a young age), or other scientific and pseudoscientific means. Occasionally, some instances also use paranormal methods, such as black magic, and/or technology and science of extraterrestrial origin. The creators of such programs are viewed often as mad scientists or stern military men, depending on the emphasis, as their programs will typically go past ethical boundaries in the pursuit of science and/or military might.
In the Past
Has any anyone/organization tried to create a program dedicated towards creating SuperSoldiers?Yes. From what history has told us with regarding groups/organizations creating a super soldier program the first well known groups that had interest in this were the Nazi's. In 1935 they set up the spring life, as a sort of breeding /child-rearing program. The objective of the "spring life" was to create an everlasting Aryan race that would serve its purpose as the new super-soldiers of the future. Fact –The average Nazi soldier received a regular intake of pills designed to help them fight longer and without rest although these days it is now common for troops battling in war that take pills.
Modern day What Super soldier Projects are in progress in this time & day? DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is currently working on projects from what today's news tells us.
What does the encyclopaedia tell us about DARPA?
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technologies for use by the military. DARPA has been responsible for funding the development of many technologies which have had a major effect on the world, including computer networking, as well as NLS, which was both the first hypertext system, and an important precursor to the contemporary ubiquitous graphical user interface.
A daily mail article around 13, 2012 talked about DARPA currently working on a Super-Solider program as of this moment, it is surprising that DARPA is becoming more open towards the public perhaps to become more acceptable within the public. Article explains:
Tomorrow's soldiers could be able to run at Olympic speeds and will be able to go for days without food or sleep, if new research into gene manipulation is successful. According to the U.S. Army's plans for the future, their soldiers will be able to carry huge weights, live off their fat stores for extended periods and even regrow limbs blown apart by bombs. The plans were revealed by novelist Simon Conway, who was granted behind-the-scenes access to the Pentagon's high-tech Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Although these sources are from the conspiracy site Above Top Secret and the information is three months old, this ties in with Bekkum's story and not only would super soldiers be formidable against regular Earth armies, they mind prove good cannon fodder against alien invaders who are pure telepathy, for a while maybe.
There is no way to prove this as truth of course, but I'm providing just enough info so you can research this on your own and come to your own conclusion.
What do you think?
Kit Green's Mindtap: Attack at Skinwalker Ranch


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Screw Cee Lo Green; Buikais the real soul machine. Of course, shes not actually a soul singer or even a neo-soul vocalist. Shes not a jazz singer or a flamenco singer. She doesnt do copla (a form of Spanish popular song). Nor is she, strictly speaking, a Latin singer or a lounge crooner. Shes not the second coming of Billie Holiday and isnt all that much like jazz-pop legend Sade. Yet Buika is all of those things. Though the Spanish songbirds family hailed from Equatorial Guinea, she was born in Palma, Majorca. And its a damn good thing. Otherwise, the world might have missed out on the melding of styles and influences that form Buikas unique spin on the traditional flamenco and copla sounds, imbued with the sultry sounds of soul and jazz. So, no, shes not Billie Holiday. And shes not Sade. But if Billie Holiday and Sade got together for a lesbian encounter under the Majorcan moonlight just once, maybe in college their offspring would be Ms. Concha Buika.
Sat., Nov. 20, 8 p.m., 2010


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North East United Methodist Church
Friday, November 28, 2014
Provided by Christ Notes Bible Search
Sunday November 2nd
Sermon Series: 6 Things we should know about God!
Sermon: "God wants you to change"
New discussion series
starting Sunday 10/12
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Our Youth Ministry meets Sunday nights JV (6-8 grade) 5:30pm - 7:30pm & Varsity (9-12 grade) 6:30pm - 8:30pm. For more info click here


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2012-2013 Discussion Thread for La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, etc
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: AJ land
Posts: 1,967
Re: 2012-2013 Discussion Thread for La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, etc
Originally Posted by
Your arguments make sense, but I still don't agree with them. It's like me trying to say that Latvian bloke who scores 40+ league goals every season is as successful as Messi/Ronaldo. Or Jordan Rhodes is as successful as van Persie. Relativity is important. But more importantly you're ignoring European achievements, which is the most important factor of all. Madrid and Milan who I mentioned have 16 European Cups between them. Barcelona have 4 European Cups and 4 Cup Winners Cups to go with their domestic success.
I'm not saying Rangers are a better team than Barcelona, it would be very hard to be with the way football is, there never really has been a level playing field, and although it used to be more level than it is now, Rangers and Celtic have always punched above their weight and still do, just not on as big a scale, and that's only because the financial disparity between countries and leagues is getting wider. Celtic won the European Cup, and got to the UEFA Cup final in the 2000's.
We won the cup winners cup, gwe got to the semi-final in the first year the European Cup became the Champions League, we lost to Marseille in the semis and it was later found out they match fixed, we accumulated a lot of debts in the 1990's and early 2000's to try and keep up with the way finances in other leagues was chaning, and it nearly worked, that season and it did work most years domestically. And we got the UEFA cup Final in in 2008, beating teams from all the 'major leagues' on the way to it.
Personal achievements like the Latvian striker thing, aren't the same, my argument isn't saying a Latvian striker paying in a part-time league scored 60 goals in all competitions so he is as good as Messi, that Latvian striker probably wouldn't score 60 goals a season if he moved to Barcelona, but that doesn't mean his achievements are rubbish beacause he wasn't playing in a league where, if you get relegated you will get a parachute payment higher than most teams in other countries would make in a year, a finishing in the top half of their league,
I get what you're saying and there are different ways of looking at it, but judging it, the team with the most trophies are the most successful, just as the guy with the most medals is meant to be 'the best of all time', and we have more trophies than any other football club in the world.
Even though we would find it difficult to play in the Premier League or La Liga, the SPL is a good standard for us just as La Liga is a challenge for Barcelona, so the achievements are just as good, and in this case better, because every team, athlete, etc. have their level.
And the fact that Rangers and Celtic can lure good players, and when we're in division 3 and been punished really badly, is amazing for the clubs, and the reputation they have although financially football becomes more unbalanced, and players sometimes have to take lower wages to play for us.
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Fire guts Bristol home
Published On: Apr 12 2014 04:54:36 AM CDT
Updated On: Apr 12 2014 07:24:17 AM CDT
Updated On: Apr 12 2014 07:24:17 AM CDT
Bristol, Tennessee Fire and Rescue responded to a call late Friday night at the intersection of Maryland Avenue and Chestnut Street.
We're told the call came in around 11:20 Friday. Crews say they were on the scene within four minutes.
Fire officials tell us that home is a total loss.
One victim was taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation. There is no word on his condition.
We're told firefighters cleared the scene around 3:45 Saturday morning.
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Category: Movie Theaters
Region: Minneapolis (Downtown)
Tamara Ober wowed Twin Cities audiences last summer at the Minnesota Fringe Festival with Sin Eater, her docudrama/multidisciplinary solo performance piece about a woman who seeks redemption for her war-veteran father. Ober's emotional intensity, combined with her incredible dance technique and unaffected acting style, won her three Sage nominations — Best Dance, Dancer, and Design — in 2012. After a successful tour around the Fringe circuit, the McKnight fellow is bringing the work back to the Twin Cities as part of Red Eye's New Works 4 Weeks Festival. She shares the bill with Angharad Davies's Pretend, a piece about finding identity in today's image-saturated world.
June 13-15, 8 p.m.; Sun., June 16, 2 p.m., 2013


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Select () or exclude () categories to narrow your recipe search.
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1/1 Photo of Cocoa-Buttermilk Cake
Prep Time:
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I adopted this recipe 9/06. It is incredible. The great reviews are not misleading. I don't get why the instructions tell you to trim the cake. I just chilled the cake for a bit and then spread the frosting on the sides of the cake. This will be my main chocolate cake from now on. I didn't take a great picture of the cake, but the one I took gives you a hint of how much I loved this cake. I didn't share it, I just got a fork and ate it for 3 days right off of the platter. The original description follows..... This is a super chocolatey buttermilk cake and icing. Very easy to make. This cake is "the" employee comfort food at the catering company where I work.
Serves: 12
9x13 cake
Units: US | Metric
Serving Size: 1 (217 g)
Servings Per Recipe: 12
Every recipe, menu, tip and how-to is right here, at your service.


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Conroy visits Nextgen's backhaul hub: pics
Summary: Fibre-optic backbone specialist Nextgen Networks has installed over 8000km of its own fibre across Australia, but its current role as prime contractor for the government's 6000km Regional Backbone Blackspots Program (RBBP) has given it a high profile in the National Broadband Network (NBN) roll-out, especially now that the provider has reached its halfway point.
1 of 13Image
(Credit: David Braue/ZDNet Australia)
Nextgen's Regional Backbone Blackspots Program (RBBP) is being run from its fibre-optic broadband centre of excellence in Mulgrave, near Monash University in Melbourne's south-east. The facility employs more than 100 of what Peter McGrath, group managing director of Leighton's telecommunications division, called "high-value and technically specialised employees", managing everything from design, land access, planning, heritage issues, cultural issues, and more.
(Credit: Nextgen Networks)
The RBBP network is on target to begin offering live ADSL2+ services to customers in Geraldton, WA; Victor Harbor, SA; and south-west Gippsland, Victoria by March 2011 while customers on longer sections reaching areas like Darwin; Broken Hill; South Australia's Riverland; Emerald and Longreach; and Victoria's Riverina are expected to be live by September 2011.
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.


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Association ou organisation à but non lucratif
Dernière mise à jour : 17 févr. 2011 22:13:53
The Global Justice Center aims to equip leaders in developing democracies with the legal tools to enforce women's rights to equality in political representation and in doing so, redefine democracy for the twenty-first century. The Global Justice Center works to:
o Target the entrenched political and cultural norms that perpetuate male dominated decision-making bodies and constrain women;
o Use human rights and international law as tools to restructure societies in ways that enable women to take their rightful place in national and international governance bodies;
o Identify activists, leaders, judges, and policymakers and train them in the affirmative use of women's human rights and international law as tools for constructing new democracies, governments, and transitional bodies;
o Transform the operational definition of democracy to one that is truly representative.
The Global Justice Center is a non-profit, non-governmental organization supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide.
Adhérer ou vous identifier pour administrer cette page.


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Only votes by users with more than 5000 Status points count towards the final score Know more about Status


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Release the Soundtrack for Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra
As fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, we enjoy all aspects of these rich series including the wonderful music composed by the Track Team. Unfortunately, a soundtrack has never been released for either. It is our hope that with enough signatures Nickelodeon, the copyright owners of the music, will respond by releasing the soundtrack either digitally and/ or on CD so that we can all own and enjoy this fantastically written score.
Once our goal for signatures has been reached, this will be sent to the appropriate people at Nickelodeon.
No comments yet.join the discussion
Recent signatures
Nicholas Slaydon1 week ago Comments: -
Rosemary Stoenner, United States2 years ago Comments: -
Lydia Mendoza, United States2 years ago Comments: I would quickly purchase the album if it were released!
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Item: Rain doesn't make you depressed
In a study by The Netherlands' Maastricht University, researchers looked at nearly 15,000 people to see if they could correlate rainy weather and depression. They could not. And it's not just clinical depression. They couldn't even find a correlation between weather and mood. In fact, the highest rates of sadness occurred in the summer and fall.
Item: Oregonians are smart drivers
GMAC Insurance released the results of GMAC National Drivers Test, which tests driver knowledge of laws. Oregon ranks second behind Kansas. We got more than 80% correct on the test, along with only three other states.
Although I don't immediately see a way to link these two findings to beer, I suspect the link is there nonetheless. Has to be.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Random Fragments
1 comment:
- eric said...
Eight states got more than 80%
- 11:58 AM, May 28, 2010
Post a Comment
NOTE: Blogspot has been eating some comments, and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it. IF your comment doesn't appear, it's not you, it's not me, it's the genuiuses at Google. Sorry--


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November 28, 2014
RENO (AP) - John A. Dermody, a Reno industrial developer who
helped usher in a new era of economic diversification in northern
Nevada, died Monday after a long illness at the age of 95.
Dermody was credited for leaving a legacy of business parks,
warehouses and industrial buildings that provided jobs to thousands
of workers. He helped put Reno on the map as an industrial and
warehousing site, and helped eliminate the region's dependence on
Dermody started his industrial empire in the 1960s and 1970s by
buying local ranches and turning them into warehouses and
industrial buildings.
His son, Michael, took over the business in 1983. The company,
now called D-P Partners, is among the ten largest private
commercial developers in the country.
John Dermody went with then-Governor Richard Bryan on a trade
mission to Japan and Korea in the 1980s, and also accompanied
then-Governor Mike O'Callaghan on a trade mission to North Carolina
in the 1970s.
The family held a private funeral service. An event to celebrate
his life is being arranged.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Click Here to access the online Public Inspection File
Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or firstname.lastname@example.com.


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On the other hand… here's something you can do
VOTF is making noises about having a balanced roster of speakers invited to their shindigs. In keeping with Pete Vere's letter below, Dave Pawlak suggests the following people be added to that roster:
Fr. George Rutler
Fr. Frank Pavone
James and Helen Hull Hitchcock
Jesse Romero
Donna Steichen
If you have people you'd like to speak to a VOTF shindig, why not write them and suggest it? Couldn't hoit!


text:
- Northern Illinois to get $8.3 million for state construction projects
- Tree-lighting festival kicks off holiday season in Machesney Park
- Roscoe Boy Scout Troop's tree stand at new location
- Tips for selecting safe toys for kids this holiday season
- Prayer service for World AIDS Day Nov. 30
- Food Bank joins national #GivingTuesday movement
- Lee Hamilton: What lies ahead for Congress
- Rockford Public Schools faces $8.8 deficit, board OKs flat tax, HR chief
- Literary Hook: A holiday tradition: 'This Thanksgiving, Remember'
- Cold snap does not negate global warming
Sunshine Week: Attorney general releases details of 2011 FOIA requests
Staff Report
CHICAGO — In recognition of Sunshine Week, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan released details of the more than 5,100 matters before her office's Public Access Bureau in 2011.
The Public Access Bureau upholds the state's Freedom of Information Act and Open Meetings Act, helping to foster transparency and openness in Illinois government.
"Every year, the Public Access Bureau handles thousands of requests for help in prying open public records and meetings in Illinois," Madigan said. "This work to increase transparency and accountability is essential to restoring the people's trust in government."
Madigan, lawmakers and other open government advocates revamped the state's open government laws in 2009 to help bring about long overdue transparency and openness in government operations.
Their efforts permanently established a Public Access Bureau within the Attorney General's Office. The public and media can ask the Public Access Bureau to review whether documents being withheld by a public body should, in fact, be disclosed under FOIA.
The Public Access Bureau also reviews whether public bodies have violated the Open Meetings Act. These "requests for review" submitted by the public and the media can lead to either informal or binding decisions by the Public Access Bureau to resolve disputes regarding public access to government documents or meetings.
In 2011, the Public Access Bureau received 5,164 new matters. Last year's numbers once again show that members of the public, rather than media representatives, are the most prolific users of Illinois' sunshine laws. In fact, records show an increase in the number of members of the public who appealed to the Public Access Bureau last year for help in obtaining public records or gaining access to government meetings.
Following are details of 2011 Public Access Bureau activities:
• 5,164 total new matters were received by the Public Access Bureau: 4,485 of those matters were closed, resulting in a closure rate of 87 percent.
• 2,561 requests for PAC review from those who were denied records under FOIA: 2,000 from members of the public, 171 from the media and 390 from other entities.
• 286 requests for PAC review regarding OMA violations: 229 from members of the public, 12 from the media and 45 from other entities.
• 2,317 requests from public bodies for pre-authorization to deny records under a FOIA request. (Note: pre-authorization requests were eliminated Aug. 26, 2011, by Public Act 97-579.)
• 28,829 people registered with the Attorney General's office for online training about the state's Sunshine Laws.
Sunshine Week was founded by the American Society of News Editors and is recognized annually every March. More about Illinois' sunshine laws can be found at Madigan's website, http://illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/. Anyone seeking assistance from the Public Access Officer can contact its hotline at 1-877-299-FOIA (3642) or send an e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com.
From the March 14-20, 2012, issue


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Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives. January 18, 1973, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 The commies at Watergate? by Judith Miller WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The major problem with the Watergate trial is that the prosecution has not gotten to the bottom of the sordid affair, because it has ref ... More >>
The tragic death of Gary Webb, one of America's most important investigative journalists
Clues from the past about Rove's present date with the grand jury
But his speech doesn't account for the administration's heavy hand in spinning faulty intelligence
Pick your sports metaphor: Fernando Ferrer seemed to win Tuesday night's second and final general election mayoral debate with incumbent Michael Bloomberg, on style points at least. "But," we can hear the analysis pieces in tomorrow's dailies asking, "did he land a knockout blow?" Did he birdie the ... More >>
Twenty-two pages boiled down to 1,200 words
Rove and Ashcroft face new allegations in the Valerie Plame affair
While press presses Rove, prosecutors scoop reporters, take notes
What Apple Computer Insists are 'Trade Secrets' These Websites are Calling News
New York magazine's ambitious convention gamble breaks evengreat big fancy ads help
The question is not what went wrong, but what didn't.
WMD Lies Could Be the New Watergate
Trulock Gives 'Times'-Bashing a Bad Name


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Jesse James Breaks Down in Court, Reveals He Hit 'Rock Bottom'
Lindemulder's lawyer asked the Monster Garage host if he'd hit rock bottom earlier this year. "Yes. To some degree," James replied. "I am continuing treatment," he added, alluding to his stint in rehab.
James revealed on the stand that he "was a victim of childhood abuse and trauma" and that he "pretty much raised myself." James previously said his father abused him when he was younger and it led to his cheating behavior.
He began to choke up when he talked about the abuse further. He admitted he'd "been living in the shadow of that my whole life. I've always hated my sister, but as bad as I got beat, she got it even worse."
Later in his testimony, James said he became an alcoholic around the age of 14 or 15. "That was a big Band-Aid for the pain I was in," he told the court. "I drank until I was 30."
He also testified that during his month-long stay in rehab earlier this year, his 6-year-old daughter Sunny with Lindemulder stayed with Sandra Bullock in Austin, Texas. James and Bullock's divorce, following news of James' cheating, was finalized in June.
The trial is taking place to determine whether Sunny moving to Texas with James is in the child's best interest. James plans to move to Texas in the very near future.
Sandra Bullock and Jesse James Pics
- Filed under:
- Movie News -
- Troublemakers -
- Celebrity Scandal -
- Sandra Bullock
- Thursday 15 JulyBy chicobombico
Jesse is a useless. He serves no purpose. Give nothing to anyone except dirt bags like himself.
- Thursday 15 JulyBy baz
The problem with Jesse is that he only is able to cry real tears for himself. I truly think he's missing a link. He snowed Sandra for a long time... now that the light is shining on the real Jesse, his true colors are shown. Unfortunately, he's not trustable forever.
you cry baby we man cheat and wemen like bad boys she left nim couse the hold world nows about it but if they had kept it quiet shes still be with hin given hin head
- Friday 16 JulyBy kim
so untrue!!! people make mistakes.. have you ever made a mistake? YES, i'm sure you have. people should stop judging other people! god forgives, and so should you, sandra ,etc. it doesnt mean she should take him back as a husband, but it does mean that more people should open up their minds and know that NOBODY!!!!!! is perfect! especially a child of abuse. they act out, in various ways! SOOOOO...... get a clue people!
- Friday 16 JulyBy ghowtrk
Jesse needs to man up and quit blaming abuse as child for his grown up problems. A man like him does not deserve a lady like Sandra, He is someone who just let his stardom(lil star at that) go to the wrong head and because of that he will lose it and wind up with nothing because of it, Sandra move on raise the lil boy and be happy all this came out now and not later
- Friday 16 JulyBy postpatrol
jn you ignorant waste of oxygen. Pull the family dog from your sphincter and go get an education. What are you like 43 and living in your mothers basement?
- Friday 16 JulyBy DJ
Sorry, HE NEEDS HELP. Look at his childhood. He needs serious help.
He isn;t the worst, Try John Edwards or Tiger Woods.
- Friday 16 JulyBy M opinion
I'm sorry for the hell Jesse went through in his childhood years, but is that any reason for him to treat Sandra as he did? Nope, I say not, I went through hell in my childhood and am still going through it and I'm an adult, but I do not treat people bad as he does and that daughter of his probably needs to go stay with Sandra and the son she adopted and stay away from Jesse and his ex wife.
- Friday 16 JulyBy JOANNA
What crap.
If this moron had my parents he would have imploded by 15.
I don't abuse people, and I don't give license to those that use their childhood as an excuse.
Jesse needs to get the message.... time to grow up "PETER PAN".
We are responsable for our oun behavior.
- Thursday 15 JulyBy John
Grow up Jesse. Sandra was perfect for the movie blindside. However Jesse was such a reprobate there is just no remedy.
- Thursday 15 JulyBy Tina
Jesse, you are your own worst enemy.. It's really hard to feel sorry for someone like you.. You had it all, and you blew it.. Now, you want pity. I'm afraid no one is going to give that to you. You need to buck up, take the bull by it's horns and get on with life.. You messed up big time with Sandra. You need to move on and better yourself for you and your children.. Good luck..
- Thursday 15 JulyBy critic#1
They're getting back together. I'll bet anybody anything. You think him moving out there is just a coincidence. Even if they don't do it publicly, he is still gonna be tapping that A**.
tina you need to get you know what by a bicker then youl just shut your mouth and open lgs
- Saturday 17 JulyBy PJIM424
jn- speak english much? You and critic are understandably Jesse fans and probably also fans of that trash he hooked up with. Bottom feeders.....
Tina you are right on the money!!
- Thursday 15 JulyBy bren
I like Jesse and i think hes lived through hell ! I think he knows what hes lost and regrets it ! He should not lose his daughter hes suffered enough! I hope Sandy takes him back gives him another chance! Good luck Jesse!
brennnn sandra has a horse shes just ugly fase, jessy is a bicker thats what they do drink beard and do echother old ladys you need to be in bicker world and you would just shot your mouth ,m,
- Saturday 17 JulyBy Hugh Jassol
"jessy is a bicker thats what they do drink beard and do echother old ladys". Jesse is a "bicker"? Hahahaha! They drink "beard" too! Hilarious! Hahahahaha.
- Friday 16 JulyBy Kellyann
bren-well said! I beleive he has learned from his mistakes. As far as his little girl-I truly hope that the court lets Jesse move to Texas with Sunny. If, in time, Sandra and Jesse do reconcile, I really beleive he will be beyond a fantastic boyfriend/husband to her. He is a human being that royally screwed up-as we all do at times, some worse than others, but at the end of the day-it is between and up to both Jesse and Sandra to decide what is best for THEIR lives and the lives of THEIR children. Hang in there, Jesse-you are NOT a monster-people such as pedophiles, etc. THEY are monters-not YOU!!
JN-been dipping into the libations a tad? When you sober up-wait let me put it so you will understand, JN:den u bober pu uu ill feil prity dutip.
- Friday 16 JulyBy just meHigh Rank Vote downVote upReport this
Hey jn are you on something? Are you really beautiful to call Sandra ugly face? You can't even spell n put your grammars together.
- Thursday 15 JulyBy seeksir
Jesse, good for you! regardless of what anyone else thinks! Yeah, you messed up and you paid a big price for it! BUT, You don't owe anything to these people that claim you are a horrible person. Fight for what you want and be persistent!
Jennifer Aniston
Is it Brad(ley) and Jen take 2? Jen was spotted out on the town with dreamboat ...
Paris Hilton
After Fairly Legal actress, Sarah Shahi, laid into Paris via Twitter for almost...
Kate Middleton
Kate Middleton is officially a princess. She walked the aisle in an Alexander...
Denise Richards
According to Denise, she's not sure that her estranged ex is completely sober....
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Celebrity Tattoos: Guess Who?
Previous Next « Back to Story Replay
In November 2012, Adam Lambert said of his new ink: "It represents my Astrological Birth Chart, along with Pagan, Buddhist, and Greco-Roman Archetypes related to balance and the life cycle. My chart is Aquarius Sun, Libra Rising, Aries Moon. All three are represented."
Source: Twitter


text: Win via tapout and now sporting gym gear thanks to CustomInk.com View full-size image < previous next > Is this photo a winner? "Conflict MMA presents Havoc in the Civic! MMA event in Savannah Ga. I won via heel hook 37 seconds intot he first round. Customink was responsible for black vneck in background on wife and my walkout baseball tee. Another custom design is in the works as we speak!!!! Great shirt, Great service = wins for everybody!!" - Controlled Aggression (May 12, 2013) Share this photo on: Twitter Facebook Pinterest Similar Photos: Pro MMA Fight | event sporting | ga | health fitness beauty | martial arts | mma | savannah Feeling inspired? Visit the CustomInk Design Lab to start your own group order. Design Your Own comment by Guest - May 14, 2013 - back to the top Lindsay Rouse...Awesome comment by Guest - May 17, 2013 - back to the top I was there and was great, it really showed off his individuality and stretch, I can't wait to see the next design!


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Truefacts said...
President Obama's policies have harmed Chattanooga enough
Many, many compliments to whoever wrote the article! Right on course!!! To all of the comments made by the supporters, are you blind???? You are the ones who have been brainwashed!!! Obama is the BIGGEST LIAR that has ever occupied the oval office. The ONLY THING THAT HE IS GOOD AT IS LYING!!! He and his administration, inclusive of Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice all came out and blatantly lied about the Benghazi attacks; the IRS scandals, the fast and furious scandal; and the list goes on and on!! It is time for Obama, Eric Holder and all of his LAWLESS, RACIST administration to pack it up and get out of Washington. They have turned it into the District of Corruption!!!!
July 30, 2013 at 8:24 p.m.