Space-based solar power has been mostly all-talk - now it’s time to energize the idea with some electrifying experiments!

And that’s the goal of the “One Lightbulb” project.

In December, the Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies at the U.S. Air Force Academy will begin the process of building two small satellites.

The bright idea here is demonstrate by doing - that is, power beam between low Earth orbit and the Earth to illuminate a single one-tenth of a watt LED lightbulb.

The project as now blueprinted involves the building of two satellite systems concurrently, one “heavy” and one “light.” This dual approach using different methods provides a measure of assurance that success can be attained given technical, legal, financial, or other challenges that might bog down one of the two satellite designs.

Each satellite would weigh some 400 pounds or less, with the desired launch dates in 2010.

The “heavy” satellite mission represents a more complicated set of tasks and greater expense than its counterpart. It involves placing on orbit a satellite that will collect power and broadcast it to Earth via laser, broadcasting it to a special ground receiving station where a lightbulb would be illuminated.

The “light” satellite mission would receive laser energy from the ground, lighting up a lightbulb. Visual observation of the light on the satellite being illuminated during the laser broadcast will indicate success.

If given the chance, both satellites may fly, said M.V. “Coyote” Smith, leader of the effort and a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, now a PhD student at the University of Reading in the UK. He is also Associate Director for Space Solar Power Projects at the Eisenhower Center, U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

“We are trying to prevent resource wars by developing yet another source of safe, clean energy that can be shared widely across the planet,” Smith told me.

To keep an eye on this energetic idea, along with more details on the project, go to:

http://spacesolarpower.wordpress.com/

The National Science Board rolled out Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) 2008 today - a biennial report on the state of science and engineering research and education in the United States.

The report also documents public attitudes about science and technology - and there are some observations — albeit few of them — regarding space.

For example, the report notes that, while support for federal research investment is at historically high levels, other kinds of federal spending generate even stronger public support.

“Support for increased spending is greater in numerous program areas, including education (73%), health care (72%), assistance to the poor (68%), environmental protection (67%), and Social Security (61%),” the report explains.

And here’s a kick-in-the-head for space fans: “Scientific research ranks about on a par with mass transit (38%) and well ahead of space exploration (14%) and assistance to foreign countries (10%) in the proportion of the U.S. population favoring increased spending.”

The SEI report also points out that television and the Internet are Americans’ primary sources of science and technology information. While the Internet is favored below the TV tube for info, “to learn about specific scientific issues, more than half of Americans choose the Internet as their main information source.”

Regarding environmental quality here on Earth, the report observes that in 2007, 43% of Americans expressed “strong concern” about the environment, up from 35% in 2005. However, concern about the environment ranks somewhere in the middle among 12 issues. Global warming has recently become more prominent among environmental issues of concern to the public, the report states, although it still ranks 8th among 10 issues.

The Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 is prepared by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Science Resources Statistics on behalf of the National Science Board.

Dig into the just-released report by dialing in your Internet feed-line to:

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/

It has been one year since China took aim on its own nearly one-ton meteorological satellite by way of an anti-satellite (ASAT).

That January 11, 2007 target practice spewed out a huge cloud of clutter - debris that remains a troublesome problem for operating satellites, as well as the International Space Station. Odds are that somebody’s satellite is due for a whacking - if it hasn’t already taken place.

The destruction of the eight-year-old Fengyun-1C spacecraft by a direct-ascent rocket shot from China peppered low Earth orbit with the largest amount of human-made debris in space history.

But there’s new news to report.

NASA research by orbital debris experts now peg the number of fragments created by the ASAT shot as far higher than first reported - something like 150,000 or more bits of high-speed shrapnel that are one-centimeter and larger were created.

Furthermore, space debris authorities are puzzled at that number. It far exceeds all the fancy computer models used to gauge spacecraft breakups.

No word yet on any littering ticket issued to the Chinese. Where are the space cops when you need them?

Something odd has happened to NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS).

Back in November, four pieces from the UARS were cataloged by the U.S. Air Force Space Command. What caused the litter from the spacecraft appears to be the result from a single event - perhaps a collision with another space object.

The shuttle-deployed UARS has been circling Earth since 1991. The large spacecraft had served up important Earth climate data prior to its deactivation in late 2005.

But on November 10, UARS experienced some kind of event that produced the debris.

T.S. Kelso runs the CelesTrak web site and is an orbital debris analyst and technical program manager at the Center for Space Standards & Innovation in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

In running back the pieces back to UARS on November 10, he noticed that a piece of debris from Russia’s Cosmos 1275 “was near enough to be considered a suspect for a collision. It intersected the orbit several minutes before the apparent separation point,” Kelso told me.

However, there is a fair amount of error in the positions of these objects - so they do not appear to line up precisely, Kelso added.

By the way, space junk from Cosmos 1275 was produced when that former Soviet Union navigation satellite was blown into fragments back in 1981, perhaps by a chunk of human-made debris - at least that was the speculation in Western circles. However, according to official Russian sources the cause of the breakup of Cosmos 1275 was a battery malfunction.

That cause is consistent with the debris pattern and the fact that the spacecraft broke up after less than two months in space. NASA breakup records have noted this cause for many years.

For Kelso, he thinks collisions in space might be more prevalent than thought.

“Of course, we keep hearing that there have only been three recorded collisions, but the process of detecting them and then doing the analysis can take months or years…as seen already in this case,” Kelso said.

“Sooner or later, we’re going to stop assuming that because we don’t notice collisions doesn’t mean they aren’t happening. At least this satellite was decommissioned before this happened,” Kelso concluded.

New Zealand skipper Pete Bethune and his wife have mortgaged their house to finance a trip around the world. They’ll try to set a record by doing the trip really fast. The normalcy of this story stops there.

Their ship, which runs on biodiesel, will also be powered in part by human fat. It’s all a stunt to showcase alternative energy.

From the Daily Mail: “Demonstrating further commitment to the cause, Bethune underwent liposuction and donated enough to produce 100ml of biofuel, while two other, larger volunteers also had the procedure, making a total of 10 litres of human fat.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force pulled a green stunt of its own this week, marking the 104th anniversary of powered flight by completing the first transcontinental flight of an aircraft using a blend of regular aviation and synthetic fuel. Those wild and crazy military types!

While the media has been focusing on looming potential global crises — a peak in oil production, shortages of potable water, threat of escalating war(s), and myriad effects of global warming — a more urgent problem has been simmering: a global food shortage.

The alarm bell has now been sounded by Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, who said there is a “very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food” as prices soar and supplies dwindle.

From the International Herald Tribune:

“World wheat stores declined 11 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds to 12 weeks of the world’s total consumption - much less than the average of 18 weeks consumption in storage during the period 2000-2005. There are only 8 weeks of corn left, down from 11 weeks in the earlier period.”

Global inflation is accelerating, meantime, and that has spurred investors to buy grains and other commodities as a store of value, reports Bloomberg news. Wheat for March delivery reached a record $10.095 a bushel yesterday.

The problems are all interrelated. Higher oil prices add to food distribution costs, for example. Climate change has already contributed to crop declines. Behind it all is the growing global population, which puts more demands on the planet for all these resources. One odd pressure, according to the Herald Tribune article: More grain is being diverted “to feed cattle as the population of upwardly mobile meat-eaters grows.”

Don’t expect the oil part of the equation to get any better. As demand in China and India soars, one study suggest production could peak as early as 2008.

This today from the Daily Mail:

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

Huh?

Read below that exaggerated lead [full story], and you’ll see that the Pontiff actually pontificates more circuitously:

“It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balance,” the Pope stated.

Whatever exactly the story, and the Pope, are trying to say is not entirely clear, but his call to keep ideology out of science is certainly as wise as it is ironic.

But what was lost, as is often the case with articles on this issue, is that scientists (labeled in this story “prophets of doom”) very much do rely on evidence rather than ideology to make assessments and forecasts of climate change. To suggest otherwise is simply to ignore the melting permafrost around the globe, the changing behaviors of animals and the altered bloom times for plants.

Those who believe climate change is not real—the Pope wisely does not seem to be among them (”Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow,” he says), nor is President George W. Bush any longer among them—have their ideological heads stuck in the giant crack at the North Pole.

Back on February 7th 1971 (Earth time), Ed Mitchell was speeding much faster than a rifle bullet, on a trajectory between the Moon and the Earth. That’s when the strangest thing happened…

Mitchell had piloted Apollo 14’s Lunar Module down to the Fra Mauro region of the Moon, become the sixth human to do science in the dust, and gotten himself and Cdr. Alan Shepard back off the regolith and onto their bus ride back home.

Now he was bored: “We were just systems engineers on a perfectly functioning spacecraft.” So he looked out the window. The Command Module was pointing “up” – which is to say perpendicular to the plane of the Solar System – and spinning slowly, about once every two minutes. “Barbecue Mode”, it’s called; to evenly heat the vehicle. Ed was floating, watching the Earth, Moon, Sun and starfield pan by.

And then, without warning: an overwhelming feeing of bliss, timelessness, connected-ness… He suddenly and deeply felt the understanding of his constituent atoms as having been born in the fires of ancient supernovas. He saw Earth and it’s people and all it’s other species and systems as a unified integrated synergistic whole. He felt good; ecstatic actually…

He was not the first – nor the last – to have this specific epiphany.

Rusty Schweikart had felt it back on March 6th 1969 during a spacewalk outside his Apollo 9 vehicle: “When you go around the Earth in an hour and a half, you begin to recognize that your identity is with that whole thing. That makes a change…it comes through to you so powerfully that you’re the sensing element for Man.”

20 years ago, author Frank White collected, sifted, polished and curated the observations of 30 astronauts and cosmonauts. But these weren’t science observations or notes about the spacecraft hardware. They were reports of this specific, marked psychological shift – common to all these space travelers – immediately and profoundly broadening these hard-boiled guys’ perspectives.

This morning, in a hotel across the street from the Pentagon in Washington, DC, Frank White addressed proponents of proselytizing this Overview Effect. Cognitive scientist David Beaver had called us here. A core group of about 40 authors, astronauts, special; effects designers, ex-magicians, musicians, scientists, technologists, producers, journalists, capitalists, space-tourist adventurers, humanists, assorted geeks, hippie-survivors (and, yes, this reporter) quickly decided upon a loose strategy of collaboration and mutual support. Intended mission: maximize opportunities for Earth-dwellers to have individual Overview experiences. Strategy: use art, science, mass media, music, environmental awareness, personal networking and, oh yeah: the Web to spread the opportunity for non-space travelers to understand and possibly experience the Effect.

After decades of studying this, Ed Mitchell is pretty certain that the feeling of interconnectedness / oneness with the Universe is a consequence of quantum physics. Now Mitchell and the others assembled here want, specifically to induce or produce the Overview Effect in as many of Earth’s citizens as possible.

If this feels a little religiously fervent to you, you’re not wrong. And that’s a danger: It tends to turn critical thinkers off before they start thinking truly critically about the possibilities.

But, to the good, the Overview Effect is - by definition - simultaneously ecumenical and agnostic. And it’s nothing if not a thrill ride:

40 years ago, Doug Trumbull instantiated Overview Effects in moviegoers as the special effects designer of Kubrick and Clarke’s 2001 a Space Odyssey. Since then Trumbull’s technical-artistic touched has graced many pivotal motions pictures. He, more than anyone, invented the motion-based movie-driven theme park ride. That little thing at Universal called Back to the Future, for instance; Trumbull made it fly.

Today, at the conference, Doug foresaw a time perhaps 5-6 years out when a video iPod-like device would deliver an Overview Effect-producing dose of media content directly to users’ retinas. Oh, and it looks like Trumbull will own or co-own the patent…

Andy Newberg, a neuroscientist/physician with a background in space medicine, is learning how to spot the markers: “You can often tell when you’re with someone who has flown in space,” he says, “It’s palpable.” Andy scans brains for a living: praying nuns, transcendental meditators, others in the act of focused states. He can pinpoint regions in subjects’ gray matter that correlate to these circumstances. Newberg is seriously looking at how to fly equipment that could study, in-situ, the brain functions of space travelers. If this Overview Effect is physiologically real, Andy could watch it happen.

Interestingly, Newberg’s first test subject will not be a paid astronaut, but rather a paying space tourist: Reda Andersen slated to fly with Rocketplane Kistler says “It would be criminal NOT to study the first of us (space adventure travelers).”

Barbara Marx Hubbard is convinced this is evolution in action: “The sleep of the womb is over,” she says, “We are growing up; becoming fully human.” Hubbard has worn many hats: disciple of Bucky Fuller, Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee, international space advocate, and importantly a mother of five. As we’re born, Barbara says: “we pass from the Inner Space of our mothers into Outer Space”

So, keep the term “Overview Effect” in the top list of your search engine. In the next few years, you’ll see it connected to some awfully smart, entertaining, pithy, profound, soulful, and, yeah probably some way-too-silly and hopelessly doomed-to-fail stuff, as well.

But such is the messy, non-directed, unintended, viral-memetic way of evolution.

When scientists say oil production could peak soon, the reports are met with skepticism, especially in industry. When economists talk, industry pays more attention. That makes Monday’s forecast from the International Energy Agency (IEA) significant.

Whether it’s in a year, a decade or a century, oil production will peak. Thing is, demand is rising so fast that regardless of when the peak comes, there may not be enough to go around even if more is found and pumped.

A handful of scientists have been saying for years that the peak is not just inevitable but will come sooner rather than later. Another handful disagreed. The world drove on.

Earlier this year, a Swedish researcher used a new method of estimating oil reserves and potential new discoveries to conclude that oil could peak as early as next year.

Now, the IEA, which advises 26 industrialized nations, says “oil looks extremely tight in five years time.” What exactly does tight mean? It means, in very simple supply-and-demand terms, that the sudden and rapidly growing demand (most noticeably from China and India) will soon outstrip the supply (which everyone who admits the dinosaurs are gone would agree is finite). The IEA notes the acceleration in demand, which is no secret, but it also points out that supply from mature regions is falling faster than expected.

Some will jeer at the inevitable higher prices at the pump, while others will cheer at what IEA analyst Lawrence Eagles said: “United States is very clearly coming to the point where there would be a landmark change in fuel-efficiency policies.” A middle-of-the roader might suggest we stop arguing and get cracking on some serious alternatives now.
Backgrounders: The Mysterious Origin and Supply of Oil, Top 10 Emerging Environmental Technologies, and Why Ethanol May Not be a Cure-All

There is a lot of media coverage now about the wildfires out West. And you can feel the underlying sentiment that this is epic stuff, the concern that global warming is behind it. Some media have even stated the connection after recent fires. Problem is, in today’s Internet world, bad news spreads like, well, you know.

In the long term, scientists indeed see a connection between global warming and increased wildfire activity. But you can’t blame any one fire, or even one season, on climate change. Too many other factors (logging, not logging, rain, wind, idiots who start fires) are at work.
And 2007, despite what you’ve read, has not been that bad. While anyone suffering a fire in their neck of the woods right now probably thinks it’s a terrible fire season, so far this year is not as bad as last year and is only slightly worse than the 10-year average.

As of this morning, there are 56 fires more than 500 acres in size burning in the United States. Seventeen new wildfires started yesterday.

There have been 49,167 wildfires so far this year. By this time last year, there were 61,180.

Acreage burned to date:

• 2007: 2.29 million
• 2006: 3.99 million
• 10-year average: 2.27 million

You can see this all charted here.