Cool down and spin around

Cool down
On account of the discussions of the greenhouse effect, I feel there is a lack of initiative on behalf of the technology people. Why don't they suggest technical solutions? There is no guarantee that anybody would listen and follow their advice, but I beleive it would make the discussion more interesting and enlightened. I would like to explain that I like the environmental movement in many respects, but not because I hold the same fears in every respect as they seem to do, but rather because they seem to bring a more enlightened feeling into the political context. That they bring up important subjects and don't accept the general ignorance about many of the delicate balances beleived to determine the conditions for sustainable life. Their questioning attitude is on the whole a scientific approach unlike that of the remaining parts of politics. But a scientific approach requires a scientific response, doesn't it? The question that needs to be answered is: What are the scientific workarounds concerning the greenhouse effect? ( I don't claim to know whether or not there really is such an effect, although it does seem likely that in the long run there would be such an effect if things continue evolving as they seem to do now)
Note: I am not foreign to criticism against this constant reliance on science on my part in most everything I have been suggesting. Remember that we are facing a reality where science is mostly being developed secretely as I have been frequently repeating. For example it seems to me likely, that these human genome scientists are not telling us the whole story when they claim that the number of genes is much smaller than previously thought. The facts about those genes are of strategic importance since they can be used for evil purposes and strategically important info is usually classified, so chances are they have been lying to us lately. I should add that if this is the case it might qualify as a white lie. If we decide to trust these guys.
I have also been suggesting that there is a need on the part of the civilian society to offer interesting challenges to the best scientists (and to globally recruit them from the military sides). There is a need for civilian society to be able to offer a more inspiring and challenging context than the military systems can offer. Therefore I take every chance of pointing to such challenges, rather than siding with the 'safe' approach of pulling the breaks, accepting that we have to comply with the limitations seemingly imposed on us by nature. I am sympathetic to that safe approach but I choose to follow a slightly different path on these pages. But mind you, the more high tech oriented approach might lead to unanticipated solutions of many of the problems that the 'safe-ists' are rightly warning us against.
If there is a problem with heating of the earth, one way out would be to decrease the energy input. One method of cooling it would be to change the albedo, ie to change the reflectance of the earths surface. The most efficient way to do it would be to use highly reflecting substances, phaps obtained through genetically engineered plants having the properties we need. There is a problem with plants wanting light and not wanting to reflect it all back. So obviously the reflecting material would have to be a byproduct and not the plant itself. A simpler method would be to place a relatively small quantity of very fine dust in orbit around the earth in several different orbits creating an evenly arranged absorbing layer. It would be possible to increase it with time or to eliminate it when needed. Far outside the athmosphere it would be completely invisible.
It is possible that it would be better to use other forms of matter than fine dust. But cooling the earth is not an insoluble problem.
I have a very dim recollection of having read something about collecting energy rather than cooling by way of highly absorbing materials covering large areas in order to heat the earth, but I don't remember for what reason they wanted that. In any case paint it black for heating and use a whiter shade of pale for cooling.

About rotational energy.  (This part is a bit technical)
Fred Hoyle had some ideas of using huge marine powerplants for extraction of the energy of water waves. What has become of that kind of energy source? It seems we ought to have developed such sources to great perfection by now with all the automation equipment, hardware and software we have. But it seems mechanical energy isn't sexy enough to get much attention is it?
And what about creating stable light-weight high speed vehicles for both land, sea and air transport? One problem with fast, light-weight vehicles is that of stability. And again there are solutions, using Newtons 17th century to early 18th century insights. One such solution would be to use inertial stabilization, by storing rotational energy aboard the vehicle and extracting that energy in a highly controlled manner when it is needed. Rotational energy is connected with a property known as angular momentum. It is a directed quantity. In a 3d world like ours it resembles other directed quantities although there is a qualitative difference regarding the nature of this directionality. That qualitative difference would manifest itself more in a world of a different dimensionality, but lets continue.
Angular momentum has an axis. That axis points in a fixed direction. Not just compared with the room wherein it is localized. But actually in comparison with the fixed stars. It is far from obvious that there should be such a quantity. With that character of something absolute. How does a rotating thing know where those stars are, how can it sense this absolute space quality? No one really knows.
Isaac Newton discovered the phenomenon in his famous bucket experiment and the austrian philosopher and inventive experimental physicist Ernst Mach pondered about it just like Newton. And after Mach is named the principle that the whole of matter, the whole of the universe defines the properties of space locally in every little chunk of empty space. Physicists have tried and sofar invain (as far as I know) to formulate Machs principle in the form of an equation. For instance like a remote field effect similar to gravity or some other type of field or potential. The failure to formulate Machs principle in that quantitative manner may tell us something important, perhaps to be found out by the younger generations. Note that the factual phenomenon can probably be reinterpreted and the way I described it may be in error, but many scientists who have thought about it haven't come up with any significantly better way to state it as far as I know.
People who have played with toy gyros may have got the immediate impression when watching it spin, that its behaviour seems to contradict what I just said above. It seems the little thing doesn't have a fixed axis at all, it just wobbles around like a drunken person. This is because the angular momentum axis doesn't coincide with the axis of symmetry of the gyro itself. The physical and in that case totally unsuspended gyro does wobble but there is a fixed axis and the gyro is wobbling around that axis.

The conclusion from the bucket experiment is that it's possible to measure with precision, how a vehicle is oriented relative to absolute space even when there are no external clues, like landmarks or stars or anything. This forms the basis for mechanical gyroscopic compasses. (We are not interested in fancy laser gyros here) Such an apparatus is built with a minimization of friction in mind. The constructor doesn't wish that the gyro exerts any strong torque on the mechanical structure in wich the gyro is free to move so as to maintain its orientation relative to absolute space while the vehicle and hence that holding structure may be moving randomly. Therefore such a gyro can only be used for stabilization of the orientation of a vehicle as long as there is some other machinery capable of exerting torques on the vehicle. In an airplane that has entered into a fatal spiralling the machinery is sometimes not capable to save it from crashing. Therefore a fancy gyro compass isn't of much help. However an ultra high inertia gyro capable of transferring its angular momentum to the vehicle, could be very useful. It could actually force the vehicle to maintain a fixed orientation, different than that of the fatal spiral. Note that this would be the case even if all the flaps are gone. Even after a very serious accident, this method could force the vehicle to fall down oriented in any way that the pilot would choose although if this kind of effect would have to be maintained for any longer period of time, it would be necessary to supply more rotational energy to the apparatus inside the vehicle. Note that the idea is only intended for stabilization and it doesn't make an airplane fly. Likewise it would be useful in a similar manner in fast land and sea vehicles. Discovery channel showed world speed record breaking water travel, where the vehicles only very slightly touched the water, making them very sensitive to turbulence sometimes resulting in fatal accidents. In that kind of situation, a gyro with an ultra-high inertia, could be very useful. There would need to be a very sofisticated system for a reliable extraction of a torque from the gyro. But once it is brought to work it could force the vehicle to maintain a horizontal orientation independent of any such disturbances.
One can predict that there will be a demand for efficent light-weight storage of rotational energy in a small volume. As well as efficient methods of extracting and transferring mechanical energy in order to make full use of inertial stabilization.
(I don't know that this sort of idea hasn't already been put to use, but I know that modern military aircraft use a sophisticated fine tuning of their exhaust to stabilize the vehicle, and I assumed that there would have been talk about inertial stabilization if they had used it. I am not saying I beleive that inertial stabilization would necessarily be needed in such aircraft. The main use I see is for emergency situations.)
I suppose a similar problem would exist with very high-speed cars if anybody would contemplate on using such things for other than record-breaking adventures. And why not? A car could be scaled up to very large size and potentially supersonic land transport might be used instead of airplanes, who knows? It would be much easier to shield off the sound bang on the ground than in the air. On planets without or with only a thin athmosphere it would be even more likely to be used. I think high-speed trains are more likely to come first since stability would be easier to master. And on distant planets where the temperature allows for superconduction without any added cooling some kind of superconducting magnetic type of transport would probably be very economical. I beleive such methods are already used here on earth, in the secret underground facilities among other places, for very high speed transport.

My aim is to provide challenges not solutions. Therefore some of the things I am suggesting below may be unwanted. I suspect that this may be the case for some nuclear rocket applications. But the military scientists would know more about this. In addition there is always a potential for innovations, which may eliminate obstacles connected with safety.
About safe air transports.
The trend is towards larger and larger airplanes. If there is a serious accident, a large number of people can be saved if safety is improved. Some accidents with airplanes may be deliberately arranged to look that way while in reality they are acts of war. A secret war. With a tit for tat strategy. So there would be a pair of seeming accidents, one on each side of the conflict and the conflict would probably fade out, without the public knowing anything about it. I dont know with any certainty that this has really happened but I suspect it. But lets put aside such conspiracy ideas. Accidents happen. Although it is a rare occurrence, it does matter. One way to make air transport safer is to provide the airplanes with means for safe landing even when the engines no longer work. One way would be to use compartmentalized design and huge parachutes, like those used on secret military vehicles, where these were needed when the vehicle returned from space. If the aircrafts are to be built out of separate compartments this has to be planned in from the beginning. Separate compartments means there will be more material needed than when there is one single large volume. But future inventions might come making it possible to create some kind of lightweight walls when needed.
An entirely different approach would be to use rocket braking. Since conventional rockets are too heavy to carry around in the 99,999% of airflights when there is no accident, there will have to be innovative designs for rocketry. One obvious solution would be to use miniature nuclear powered rocket engines. I don't know if such engines exist with the wanted light-weight designs. Since such rocket engines would be used to save hundreds of lifes, some compromises with other types of risks would have to be accepted. The reason why nuclear power is needed for efficient rockets is that the efficiency of a rocket engine depends very strongly on the exhaust velocity (call it v_e ). the dependence on v_e is exponential The dependence is as m'=mexp(-a/v_e ), where m is the initial and m' is the final mass of the rocket and a depends on other parameters. Here we assume a single stage rocket: (nothing is thrown away) It is a bit surprising that nuclear rockets have not been used outside of military projects. The reason is probably partly the safety aspect: Very large rockets could be built with the nuclear technology and they wouldn't have to drop any part of the rocket. One could send an entire city into space using such technologies. The trouble is: if there is a serious accident the biosphere would be severely radioactively polluted. It would be a major environmental catastrophy. I haven't heard this problem debated and therefore I suspect that there may be other reasons, such as military motives. Not to let the enemy have it. The ordinary hydrogen-oxygen powered rockets, presently used, are as far as I know very clean: they just produce a lot of steam. Choo choo rockets. Nuclear rockets would possibly use steam to produce exhaust, but the heating would derive from nuclear reactions. Very high exhaust temperatures could be attained. (At such temperatures the steam temporarily transforms into oxygen and hydrogen, which is a prerequisite for high efficiency.) Since there is an exponential dependence on v_e, a set of very small rocket engines, strategically positioned could suffice to slow down a huge aircraft enough to save the passengers.
I don't know if there are any ways of heating the exhaust without making it significantly radioactive. In what follows I will assume that this is possible. If that would prove impossible, it would be a serious objection against using the technology, although the pros and cons would still have to be compared. And the search for finding such methods would be an important challenge.
One problem with such mininuclear machines would be the type of nuclear fuel used. I havent looked into what options there are regarding safety against nuclear radiation. For high safety the weight of efficient encapsulation and shielding might pose a problem. A binary type of nuclear fuel would be advantageous: ie where each component taken by itself can be handled safely with moderate shielding. But I haven't looked into this enough to know whether there is such an option. Maybe such binary nuclear fuels would be too expensive if they exist. The passengers might want to place themselves as far away as possible from those rocket engines if there was any noticable radioactivity. All such aspects would tend to make such methods hard to implement. I assume the unethical radiation experimentation on military personnel and on civilians has among other things been done for the purpose of testing the feasibility of nuclear powered air transport of various kinds. Maybe mostly for space travel, but possibly for nuclear powered aircraft as well. And since there hasn't been any talk about it it seems they haven't solved those safety problems. Perhaps economical shielding is a serious problem. And maybe the exhaust is very hard to heat without making some of it radioactive.
In any case there is room for innovation. To solve the safety problems and find ways to build miniature rocket engines for emergency situations. Perhaps rocket engines would make sense for ships and trains as well in emergency situations. And in that case the weight of the shielding would be less of a problem. An additional problem with nuclear rockets is that the exhaust, even if it isn't radioactive in itself initially, would create secondary radioactivity for very high exhaust velocities. I don't think that would pose a problem in the applications contemplated above. However there may be a problem with chemical reactions set about by such high velocity exhausts. Especially if there are many such rocket engines at work globally. But if they are used only in emergency situations I don't think such considerations would be considered weighty. We are talking about saving hundreds of lifes in the cases when such engines would be put to use. In space travel outside the athmosphere high exhaust velocities wouldn't be a problem and therefore such rockets could be made more efficient.
I order to travel very far away to other stars etc there would be a need for innovation. Such as antimatter propulsion. But such animals may be very difficult to invent.

Another idea for air transport:
To create stable and reliable thermal currents in the athmosphere and use them for silent gliding flight with a reliable schedule. The idea would be to try and tame the weather and put it to better use. Naturally without sacrificing any other important aspect. If it works it would probably not compete with other regular transport methods, since even if it could be made reliable it wouldn't provide a straight line path. The transport would consist of large radii semicircular turns up and down. But is it at all possible? I have no idea. The energy would have to come from the sun as usual. I am just brainstorming a bit. The idea is to provide challenges, not solutions.

They're already doing it and our leaders don't act like grownups
It should be noted that,according to some unofficial sources, the military are already manipulating the weather for destructive purposes using various large electric machines, apparently originating from the work of Nicola Tesla, who died in 1943, but still more than half of his scientific papers remain classified. Since they are already manipulating the athmosphere for evil purposes, why not try some better purpose. At least an enlightened discussion. Presently the western governments who wish to be considered democratic have an extremely annoying habit of avoiding to discuss all these kinds of things openly. I challenge people with insight into such things to break that very bad and essentially undemocratic habit. I don't understand that kind of discipline. It seems that everything important is being lost in the process if they avoid to discuss things. I don't beleive for a moment that anything positive comes out of that kind of silence among the elites.
I am sure they think they are acting wisely and that it is us who don't understand etc. But this wisdom is imaginary and when they break out of that bad habit it may break the spell and make possible and necessary real changes for the better. It's a collective madness on the part of the elites. They keep on encouraging each other 'we don't talk about it'. 'There are national security implications', 'It would cause problems with foreign relations' bla bla bla.
I beleive a significant factor is that it is simply unpleasant to talk about the many unethical activities going on. More than protecting any national security interests, they simply don't want to 'spoil the party', to bring up unpleasant subjects. They don't like it, they don't want to deal with it, they are in fact totally irresponsible and it is the awareness of this irresponsibility that makes such subjects unpleasant. They think life has become too complicated and they don't want to face it. Many of the references to the national security interests are like in the movie with the wizard of Oz. It's just smoke puffs. It's nothing. It's just a lot of irresponsible people who don't want to act like grown ups. Most of the western politicians.

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