Category Archives: Environment

Real Politics, the Politics of Reality and Me

Posted on February 27, 2014 | 1 comment

It is an interesting time for politics for those who have time and energy to keep up their interest in politics. This may include me sometimes more than others. What could be more compelling than watching the news and expatiating on is implications? Well quite a few things in point of fact. For me just now my father’s cancer has me well distracted from the problems with Obamacare, same sex marriage, the Afghanistan situation, the low rates of labor force participation in the United States, the ongoing BP leak situation, the nightmare of water management in the country, the escalating tensions with Russia (related to Ukraine, Snowden, Syria, the EU, East Asia and other matters), the North Korean missile tests, the downsizing of the U. S. Army and the vast unrest joined to isolated misanthropy which is gripping our country. Yes it is a good time for political speculation but it is not the only thing worth thinking about. In fact it is true that most Americans have little connection to many of these political issues.

My father has received results of a biopsy from an area where he had a previous cancer that there is cancer, that cancer has recurred or that it is present. I am sure Mom will post some news eventually. This afternoon he will meet with an oncologist and Mom will be with him.My father has had at least two full-fledged cancer surgeries and some treatments for each. My grandfather Chief Justice Frank W. Summers, his father died of cancer as did one of his two brothers and the other might well have done so had he not succumbed to other maladies of the same organs in which some have said cancer was starting. Many of our relatives and some of his siblings have had cancer.

My father has been blessed in the years since his first cancer to see his mission company and legacy grow and he is still deeply devoted to following the progress of both. He and my mother have celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. His mother was born in a hospital and he was close to his grandfather who was a physician. I have often heard him express gratitude for the medical and allied treatments and care he has received. For him there is no doubt that his work and family life have been extended by the efforts of his professional care community.

I hope that all will remember him in thoughts and prayers and if you see him or my mother will offer such sympathy and encouragement as you can find to offer. I went with my father to New Orleans several times when he was first sick with prostate cancer and since then my direct involvement has diminished over time. My father has also recently been diagnosed with a different health condition which may complicate all of this. He and Mom may choose to disclose more about all this at different times but those who know me know of his health struggles to some degree and it would not be right for me not mention it and pretend this is in any way my life. Nor is it a secret that he has struggled for a good number of years in the cancer arena with remissions etc. I am attaching a post I put on my blog when he went for the biopsy. The picture doesn’t frame well on FB but is better at the other site.

http://franksummers3ba.com/2014/02/21/the-future-of-this-blog/

But although I am not holding a placard nor able to do what I might think fitting the problems with Obamacare but I am aware of the crises people are experiencing. All of the social, constitutional and political issues raised by  same sex marriage and the trigger happy federal courts in this country  are on my mind  — at leas most of the issues are on my mind. I am well aware of all the many blows to morale which are accumulating so that the next 9/11 attack would have vastly more impact on the USA. I am aware of all the obstacles to readiness and  recruiting in a crisis which are accumulating. It is in that context that I view the sense of surrender that can frame the evolving  Afghanistan situation. I am deeply aware of the dangerously the low rates of labor force participation in the United States, the fact that minimum wage and Obamacare and social policy and migration patterns all feed this crisis. I am well aware of ten different trends I regard as potential threats revealed by or evident in the evolution of the ongoing BP leak situation.  The BP mess has me also more aware of the nightmare of water management in the country with issues form Eastern flooding to Western droughts, industrial abuses and the horror of the Bayou Corne/ Assumption Parish Sink Hole and Texas Brine.

http://www.assumptionla.com/bayoucorne

I am well aware of the world we live in every day of our lives. I am aware of the North Korean missile tests,and the vast resources connected to that small part of the force they represent. It is a serious concern not in itself but as a symbol rallying many other forces. It concerns me.  So does the sense of strain I detect in many of our institutions and the vast unrest joined to isolated misanthropy which is gripping our country. Sure there are always bad times but they are also always threatening. Once must overcome them to survive.

But all of these real political concerns are not the most important factors we face. I hope to devote a whole post soon to the escalating tensions of the USA with Russia (related to Ukraine, Snowden, Syria, the EU, East Asia and other matters), .It is a reality that we can really mess this up. It is not a joke. There are in fact ten wrong answers for every passable one. Yes it is a good time for political speculation but it is not the only thing worth thinking about. Nor is all speculation created equal. My solutions seem radical to many but they are moderate in my view. We must chart a sound course and do so very soon or there will be bad and serious consequences.  In fact it is true that most Americans have little connection to many of these political issues. But America has the resources to handle its crises — but not the luxury of a huge margin for error.

Again there will be more later. . . I hope.

1 Comment

Posted in Acadians, Asia, Democratic People Republic of Korea, Environment, family, Frank W. Summers, Frank W. Summers III's family, Genie Gremillion Summers, Geopolitics, My Dad, Russia, Russia's East, Snowden, Ukraine, Ukraine, Wetlands

Tagged , , , ,

5O Reasons why the Crater Cap Colony Concept is a Good and Important Idea

Posted on April 2, 2013 | 8 comments

This Note will put forth 50 reasons why the Crater Cap Colony Concept is a good and important idea. The Crater Cap Colony Concept involves building a cap on the crater of other worlds such as the Moon and Mars most of all. It also involves a specific and effective from of development under the caps. In addition to all of the other things that are part of the model there is a program for mining which is specific to the model as well.
The crater cap colonies also represent both a great deal of risk and an enormous engineering challenge. This note will seek to promote the benefits of the concept and plan and to show the contrast with other schemes. However, there is no doubt that this remains a staggeringly great challenge. In addition there have been many things that were designed to fail and many efforts undertaken to preserve something that would have been threatened by a successful design, thus in order for this to succeed it would not only have to be done well by a sustained and great effort but avoid being derailed by a false effort.
One through Twenty-Five: Craters are Special
1. The progress of human technology needs to be shaped and directed not only by war and the marketplace but also by a grand and meaningful project. The development of craters on the Moon and Mars are the right places for such a focus of development. Recognizing the special and unique importance of these craters and the potential of other craters for the human race is an important part of the chance for human progress.
2. Craters are special because they occur on the Moon, Mars, the other terrestrial planets and on the major asteroids. They cannot be ignored as a great commonality of features across the solar system.
3. Craters are also special because of the efficiencies implicit and distinctive to a crater cap as the means of instituting a colonial environment. With a crater cap one can spend the great bulk of the resources and energy of the development on the completion one dimension in a shape which also provides other dimensions of enclosure which are pre=made at no additional cost. These dimensions are able to adapt in a way which the cap cannot. Mines can be operated readily on and through the floor while the cap is improved, made more substantial and kept in a state of restricted access.
4. Craters also have numerous qualities which tend to make them good places to plant a colony. The craters are visible and distinct features with well-defined autonomous edges and a large area where air can be held under a cap and the large views over the crater itself will allow for a sense of freedom space and abundance which create real and perceived priority. Other reasons in this list will return to many of these specific reasons. But this number four reason has to do with the synergy and efficiency of combining all of these factors in the whole which is the crater as a colony site. This is even more notable when compared to how bad it would be to develop the other features of these planets as early colonies.
5. Craters offer intrinsic security in a harsh extraterrestrial environment. The crater will provide a great deal of buffering and blockage as regards to the hostile of effects of solar wind, micro-meteors, cosmic radiation and allows heat management in the environment in a way which protects from the terrors and dangers of extreme heat and cold.
6. Craters provide good visible features for navigation, comparison and planning. The craters have many common features which will allow people and agencies in varied places to learn about many common challenges and benefits from a variety of colonial sites at the same time.
7. Craters provide enormous psychological benefits. If properly conceived and managed the mines will provide security if and when the cap is breached and controlled wall dugouts and sub-floor mines will house most people and activities in such a way that the craters themselves will provide an open air space reserved for agriculture, aquaculture and recreation. The principal benefit of the space will be to allow people to see large expanses and then return to the confined spaces of daily activity. Surface areas around the crater will be utilized for astronomy, solar power generation and other activities but will not be a hospitable environment which offers a sense of real freedom of movement.
8. Craters allow for ideal multiple use planning.
9. Craters allow for a really terraformed placement of colonies without extravagant expense. Craters already tend to align to the center of gravity in a certain way and to produce numerous relatively constant parameters which colony planners, environmental specialists, technology designers and engineers can rely upon to effect their colony’s optimum performance.
10. Craters allow for species variety and ecosystem balancing early in colonial development. This is because of the ability to hava a floor, a central pond or lake , air space and mines in a particular array which is conducive to the success of biological systems.
11. Craters are truly unique in that they provide a possibility for effective thermal management. In the case of the Moon, Mars, large asteroids and any large body which is not geologically active the mines will have access to unlimited relatively cold material. Proper planning will allow the energy used in mining and living as well as the heat from lighting and other systems to balance a micro climate in the crater and still have access to a broad face for emergency thermal venting.
12. Craters are remarkably stable. For the purpose of brevity I will leave this as an assertion supported by observed facts.
13. The behavior of volatiles in craters has remarkable benefits in the case of a meteor strike. In places like the Moon, Mars and other places with very little or no atmosphere the air will rush out of a breached cap into the relative vacuum outside as will some of the water while colonists shelter in the mines. This will mitigate the destructive force of a strike already broken up before entering the crater.
14. The behavior of volatiles in craters has remarkable benefits in choosing a site. The preservation of volatiles such as water in all its forms and other gasses that can be activated by heating is a property of craters which makes them suited to be colonial sites.
15. Craters allow independent mine shaft systems for greater security of all kinds and yet links them all to a central open space which can be readily observed and monitored for defects and allows for ready movement of large groups and resources.
16. Craters are readily identified for planning and travel negotiations and discussions between parties not constantly cooperating.
17. Craters come in vastly different sizes to match the resources available to very different colonial efforts.
18. Craters can be modeled and studied to a significant degree from the craters on earth.
19. Craters offer the chance to create a very complex design and environmental system that starts with a very simple plane positioned in a predictable place and in a place where it can be easily improved.
20. Transporting energy from solar panels (and windmills in the case of Mars) to the lights, pumps and heaters on the lower face of the Cap is a very efficient position for such transfer.
21. Maintenance of features on the Cap’s plane itself has many efficiencies compared to almost any other configuration.
22. The atmosphere being created in the colony will itself help to support the great plane of the Cap for the colony. This is because of atmospheric pressure below and near vacuum above and the force of gravity being lower than Earth’s gravity.
23. Craters allow us to use many old and well established Earthly technologies.
24. Craters have no exposed elevation and reduce the incidence of meteor strikes which a colony elsewhere increases as it develops.
25. Craters are efficient in that a huge amount of energy has been expended in creating most of the design features by nature itself.
Twenty-Six through Forty: Colonizing Space is Vital
26. Space Colonization is vital to being who our species is as explorers, survivors etc. Outer space is that portion of the universe that is farther from the center of the Earth than the highest reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere. It makes up more than 99.99999999999999% of the universe which we can physically perceive.
27. Space Colonization is a necessary process if humanity’s leaders are to be able to command the respect of thinking people when difficult choices and allocations of resources must be made. Some reasonable hope for a better future given that ff we were to divide up all of the physical space we can see or detect equally among all the inhabitants of the Earth the amount of space occupied by all humans alive today would make a minute and entirely insignificant portion of the share belonging to each person.
28. Space colonization in the craters is vital in that it links the vastness of space to the real abundance that come from hard work and capitalizing on opportunity So that humanity’s constituents can understand that most of virtually limitless space is dark empty and has hardly any atomic particles in it and it is so far away that physically using those particles in any way in the next 100 generations can’t be reasonably imagined yet hard work and careful choices can create real opportunities in a few nearer places.
29. Space colonization is vital because despite how tiny it is in the universe of visible light the dimensions of our solar system alone would allow us to use a fraction of more than 99.99999999999999% of the space being somewhere other than the surface of the Earth.
30. Even in our solar system which some of our traveling craft have left behind in the voyager project most of the raw natural resources are not on the Earth’s surface. The crater cap colonies which operate in low gravity wells would allow us to reach these vast resources and supply them to Earth much more cheaply than operating from Earth would.
31. By far most of the oxygen in the solar system is in outer space and ships operating from bases in 1/6 and 1/3 Earth’s gravity could better reach those resources.
32. Most of the carbon is in outer space and ships operating from bases in 1/6 and 1/3 Earth’s gravity could better reach those resources
33. Most of the hydrogen is in outer space and ships operating from bases in 1/6 and 1/3 Earth’s gravity could better reach those resources.
34. Most of the helium is in outer space and ships operating from bases in 1/6 and 1/3 Earth’s gravity could better reach those resources.
35. Most of the metals we call precious are almost certainly there and ships operating from bases in 1/6 and 1/3 Earth’s gravity could better reach those resources.
36. Most of the exotic metals and silicates we need for specialized purposes are there and ships operating from bases in 1/6 and 1/3 Earth’s gravity could better reach those resources.
37. Most of the Methane which could be burned to power a civilization for thousands of years is out there in the solar system and ships operating from bases in 1/6 and 1/3 Earth’s gravity could better reach those resources.
38. It is almost certain that there is more liquid water under the ice of Jupiter’s moon Europa than there is on Earth and ships operating from bases in 1/6 and 1/3 Earth’s gravity could better reach those resources.
39. Our space history has already proven that nothing between the Sun and the orbit of Pluto is intrinsically beyond the reach of our own basic technology to reach, tag and return from robotically. Humans operating from colonial bases in the craters would be primed to utilize these spaces.
40. Space colonization follows a chain going from observation, to exploration, to travel and exploration and then to stationing. After these things comes colonization. Space colonization has the chance to be the biggest change in human economy since the development of agriculture. The coming of agriculture was not an unmixed blessing but it was one of the most justifiable of all social changes in human history.
Forty-one through Fifty: This is the Concept
41. These Crater Cap Colonies are the key to unlocking a future of promise for humanity. Like the rise of agriculture they are the essential innovation supporting all others.
42. Some bad things by any measure will come of these colonies as they did from agriculture but it is just as essential to make the change. Had humanity not become agricultural sooner or later things would have become much worse than they have gotten so far. The Crater Cap Colonies will allow a vast new array of needed resources and very bad results are the alternative.
43. Our science and technology up to now has shown that Space can be explored. Now it must be colonized. These colonies will allow multiple models of a new human dynamism. They will allow us to address as many varied social and environmental experiments as we may choose. Life and humanity today await at a crossroads as great as that of the first rise agriculture. These colonies will have an effect as great or greater than the first great works of irrigation for large scale agriculture created the mighty powers that ruled ancient China and Egypt.
44. Like the surpluses and changes created by agriculture these colonies will create societies that could pour wealth into the extended economy and transform it at the same level that the first agricultural changes that enabled other peoples to change from nomadic hunting or nomadic herding to a combination of nomadic herding and carrying trade goods thus our non space industries would also find new opportunities.
45. In their similarity to the ancient farms these colonies will enable space industries not involved in colonization to progress just as agricultural societies enabled fisherfolk to increase their population by adding waterborne trade to their fishing economy.
46. These colonies could promote peace while at the same time creating new security and defence sector challenges and opportunities just as early agriculture enabled warrior bands to enter int0 long-term contracts with landholding kings and to earn a living partly from keeping the peace.
47. These colonies would transform our society and future just as agriculture really made a different human world and remade much of the world as well. The best hunter-gatherers were actually richer, healthier and freer than the new farmers but in the end the choice of the species as a whole to emphasize agriculture was a choice vital to both survival and any real chance of prosperity. I think that space colonization requires a similar leap and offers similar sets of consequences.
48. Space Colonization will restore a sense of wisdom and virtue not available in much of human society today. For instance, I don’t really expect to live to see a working colony on the Moon or Mars. However, as long as I do live I will apply some of my energy to that transition humanity must make towards becoming a space colonizing species.
49. Space Colonization allows for a growing human population over time and the survival of real biodiversity on Earth.
50. Space Colonization allows for a path of reasoning which is both optimistic and sane and other long term plans do not allow for this. These colonies can be cost effective and supportive of what is going on here on Earth in a very unique way.

8 Comments

Posted in Crater Cap Colonies, Environment, Moon

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Crater Cap Colony Concept and other Endeavors of my life

Posted on March 20, 2013 | 4 comments

by Frank Wynerth Summers III (Notes) on Tuesday, March 19, 2013 at 3:35pm

I write many notes that I do not much tag and make it a habit not too tage heavily in my notes. At the time I write this I have 1,149 Facebook friends and dozens of them (you) were members of the group at the center of this topic. Feel free to converse or comment but please do not be offended for not being tagged. Most of those who are tagged were not memebers. Some are both. I just tagged a sampling of relevant Facebook friends who may or may not choose to read this trhough. I am comemorating the passing of one of the reasons I first opened this Facebook profile and keeping the ideas out there in the world one more day. This Note is really about a broader topic than the on I have selected for the title but the one I have selected for the title does matter. I am writing this note about the exploration of space and the colonization of the solar system and about my own life and efforts as well. So in context here are some thoughts:

Recalling A Facebook Group

Years ago I founded a group on Facebook called the Crater Cap Colony Concept Group. That group has now been defunct longer than it was in existence but it did involve people from all around the world and have a great number of images, formulations, discussions and diagrams related to the colonization of the Moon and Mars. It was perhaps one of the most difficult and daring undertakings of my life to bring that group into bing and was in many ways the very antithesis of the Obama presidency’s real inner meaning regardless of what else is going to come out of this period of American History. The time and energy freed up for me since the demise of this group has been time to do other things and I have done other things. In fact my whole life has been active enough.
The careful and methodical closing of the Crater Cap Colony Concept Group has been the putting aside of a dream which was busily working on for a few years in that context. Everyone has dreams and almost all of us have dreams that do not come true and which mattered to us significantly. My father dreamed of teaching at a university when I was a little child and he never did. It has always intrigued me to do so but it has never been as much a dream for me and I have already taught at a university and at a lot of other places. My dad has done some teaching as well but not as a regular instructor at a university. My father is retired and sort of emeritus head of a missionary organization of Catholics now but one of the reasons he was given for being refused a teaching assistantship at one university that gave him an interview is that at the time he was an atheist and that particular institution did not hire atheists as instructors. Years later he returned to his Roman Catholic heritage. Teaching, reading and scholarship are ready parts of my life and already parts of my life. I have been out of school for a long time but not entirely separate from these things, nor from the contacts I made in school. This past year I took the revised GRE and seriously considered going back to graduate school. I was serious about the Crater Cap Colony Concept Group but it was a kind of seriousness that was attenuated by the great difficulty in achieving these goals. I chose to shut down the group when the format changed and felt certain about that choice but it was not a simple or pleasant choice to make.

The Crater Cap Colony Concept Group also gave me connections to many people and an opportunity for many interesting discussions. However, that was not the first time I had ever been plugged into large groups of peopIe or had conversations that I cared about. I have spoken to perhaps thousands and certainly hundreds of audiences in my life and I have written a lot. I have been published a good bit as well. That history of publishing includes a good number bylines in periodicals read by those around me and in the places where I functioned then and still function now. These media include the Abbeville Meridional, The Advertiser, Bonnes Nouvelles (Vermilion) and the already much mentioned Vermilion. In the Crater Cap Colony Concept Group I had a chance to express my own opinions but I have often done that elsewhere. I have had letters to the editor appear in a variety of venues a few times over many years but those include Time and Newsweek. My only truly academic publication is a review of F.D.R.’s Moviemaker: memoirs and scripts written by Pare Lorentz and published posthumously in 1992 by the University of Nevada Press. The review appeared in the Book Reviews section of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television in one of the issues of late 1992 or early 1993 on page 106 of that issue. I began that review with the words “Some memoirs and autobiographies of creative people require a sympathetic reading. Pare Lorenz’s memoirs do not.” My own brief autobiography in the Introductory personal statement on the old group cite may have required some sympathy to make good reading. But that is partly because there was a lot of my life to cover in a document like this and I was writing in the style one adopts when one knows that most of the essentials will not be covered I suppose.
My writing history has been in different categories, writing about Colonizing space was a special and useful outlet it has not and will not be replaced. I admit that one of my main motivations in founding the group was to seek out the institutional support for my own idea and to indulge my writerly interest in expressing that vision for the future which I still find essential. Since the closure of the group I have continued to comment on policy. I am (or at least often have been) a regular commenter on Lords of the Blog which has won the British Nominet awards as best public affairs blog. I am also a Grand Prize Winner on Lord Norton’s Quiz on that blog and have commented on his own The Norton View a great deal. I have over a thousand Facebook friends on the account where this note is first appearing. These Facebook friends are people who are very diverse and in many ways very select and elite as well. I have another account with hundreds of friends where I have an online novel which is largely set in Crater Cap colonies on the Moon that novel is the principal business of that second profile.

Thus if I am nostalgic about the old group that nostalgia must be seen in a realistic context. I still miss the group at times but it is not so easy to say why. I suppose part of it is a sense of being slighted or badly used in a number of ways and having suffered the effects of unfortunate circumstance. However, I have suffered a vast number of unfortunate circumstances and been slighted and ill used a vast number of times. Therefore that sense of injustice is not unique to the group either. I also have a sense of great opportunity lost and of wasted hope, energy and potential but that must be seen in the context of one who looks around the world and sees almost an infinite amount of lost and frustrated potential. One who finds a planet teaming with squandered opportunity and frustrated brilliance. The Crater Cap Colony Concept Group does not stand as lone mountain exceptional in a plain of even handed justice. Rather it is one copse of metaphorical trees of such frustration in a vast rainforest system of such ills.

I want to write about Space exploration, the space program and other things related to astronomy and other matters but I want to do so in a way which is responsive to the real context in which my own interest in Space and things related to astronautics has developed. For me the end of all things meaningful has been on a plane and trajectory at harmony with my life for a very long time. But still I am taking time to remember the end of this little Facebook group episode. I think that I have gotten too tired to recount all that has been lost
.
What the Crater Cap Colony Concept Was All About

This portion of the Note contains some material that has appeared on my Facebook page before now. I seek to articulate here what the CCCC Group sought to understand and bring to light in some kind of development. In origins and essence it grew from my own personal vision and beliefs as regards outer space itself. Outer space is that portion of the universe that is farther from the center of the Earth than the highest reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere. It makes up more than 99.99999999999999% of the universe which we can physically perceive. If we were to divide up all of the physical space we can see or detect equally among all the inhabitants of the Earth the amount of space occupied by all humans alive today would make a minute and entirely insignificant portion of the share belonging to each person. However, most of that space is dark empty and has hardly any atomic particles in it and it is so far away that physicaly using those particles in any way in the next 100 generations can’t be reasonably imagined. But even our solar system alone would allow us to use a fraction nearly as big as that we started this argument with or maybe bigger. In the solar sytem most of the oxygen is in outer space, most of the carbon is in outer space, most of the hydrogen is in outer space, most of the helium is in outer space, most of the metals we call precious are almost cerianly there and the metals we need for highly specialized uses abound in outer space. It is almost certain that there is more liquid water under the ice of Jupiter’s moon Europa than there is on Earth. Nothing between the Sun and the orbit of Pluto is intrinsically beyond the reach of our own basic technology to reach, tag and return from roboticaly. Cost, law, design glitches and time are clearly identifiable obstacles. I said these things were not intrinsically impossbible by rearranging and refining existing technology. Given thse basic facts, I believe that an aggressive space policy is in the interest of all humans and of the Earth and all its species so long as it is mostly a wise policy or even largely a wise policy.

What inspires me to write this note today is the small concept group which I mentioned in a previous Facebook note. I believe that the development of outer space is as important as anything else that confronts human beings in our age. The concept group was called Crater Cap Concept Colony Group. It is not the only group of people exploring the possibilities of space as a group and it is not the biggest such group either. However, it is certainly the only one that I had founded on Facebook. So that rates it an important mention in these notes.

Space colonization follows a chain going from observation, to exploration, to travel and exploration and then to stationing. After these things comes colonization. Space colonization has the chance to be the biggest change in human economy since the development of agriculture. The coming of agriculture was not an unmixed blessing but it was one of the most justifiable of all social changes in human history. Had humanity not become agricultural sooner or later things would have become much worse than they have gotten so far. Life today awaits at a crossroads as great as that of agriculture. The great works of irrigation for large scale agriculture created the mighty powers that ruled ancient China and Egypt and created societies that could pour weatlh into purchases that enabled other peoples to change from nomadic hunting or nomadic herding to a combination of nomadic herding and carrying trade goods. It enabled fisherfolk to increase their population by adding waterborne trade to their fishing economy. It enabled warrior bands to enter int0 long-term contracts with landholding kings and to earn a living partly from keeping the peace. Agriculture really made a different human world and remade much of the world as well. The best hunter-gatherers were actually richer, healthier and freer than the new farmers but in the end the choice of the species as a whole to emphasize agriculture was a choice vital to both survival and any real chance of prosperity. I think that space colonization requires a similar leap and offers similar sets of consequences. I don’t really expect to live to see a working colony on the Moon or Mars. However, as long as I do live I will apply some of my energy to that transition humanity must make towards becoming a space colonizing species. The Crater Cap Concept Colony is the model I thought then and still think now that we should be pushing towards making a reality. While astronomy has always been a discipline that was a significant teacher and leader into fields of knowledge for much of the human race’s journey into development — it must yield to the leadership of those who will build permanent and sustainable colonies. On the day when Humans have a few colonies on the moon with tens of thousands of residents each it will be very easy to make huge progress in astronomy. However, aiming only for a golden age of astronomy will not necessarily bring about lunar colonization. The larger possibility must find the rank and leadership in these areas.

Craters are distinct features which can be studied and which have common characteristics. They exist on the Earth, the Moon, Mars, asteroids, several moons of our solar systems planet and can be theorized to exist in or near many other objects around our sun or other stars. Capping a crater has an intrinsic economic and resource wisdom to it because one is using the enormous energy already expended in creating the bowl and only creating one side. Frequently one could achieve enormous benefeits in blicking our cosmic rays and radiation. All of these benefits are true even for asteroids. However, in larger round objects like the Moon and Mars it is very likely that one could use the gravity to create a highly functioning biospheric hemisphere. In terms familiar to some, one could make a terrarium including one or more aquaria. Whether or not there is air or liquid water on the heavenly body would have little to do with the success of the crater cap colony. People could live in these and that is the basis of our little concept group. that ended so long ago. It was confrimed in its hypothesis by many of the findings of lunar and Martian missions which have occurred since that time. I am including some drawings of various parts of the process at the end of this note without explanation.

I also think that once there is a crater colony (or certainly a few crater colonies) thriving on the moon then one would have a basis for many industries. Things manufactured on the moon would be easily lifted and deployed to Mars colonization, to space ships, to Earth orbiting stations and to asteroid miners. One sixth gravity is economic magic that would make all solar system operations entirely different. Producing goods in space and dropping them to earth is intrinsically cheap. Thus carbon fuels highly refined could be lifted to the moon where they will be mixed with gasses made impure for colonies by various accidents and industries. These fuels would lift six times as much from the Moon as they would from the Earth and these fuels would not affect Earth’s air and climate when burned. Very precious things would be “downported” by Earth to maintain a balance. In the distant future components of landing craft returning to Earth would be built with precious metals needed by agencies and nations on Earth. This would create a flow of commerce to bring our population base into outer space. Within a few centuries perhaps a significant minority of cities and farms could be in outer space without any flash bang science that includes things we cannot imagine.

Once we have a couple of crater colonies on the Moon we would need geosynchronous satellite and another base perhaps at an L point between lunar and Terran gravity. These would be the places where all aging nuclear weapons were disposed of by either being loaded on spacecraft for second or third explosions or used in initial explosions to launch really massive spacecraft to move very fast on the way to other colonies and smaller robots on their way to the stars.

None of this is pure fantasy. I think we should divide up most of the surface of the Moon and Mars among all of earth’s nations unequally, sell some as new national sites and keep a good portion as a permanent UN mandate. Failing to act wisely now either means we willl lose humanity’s greatest economic opportunity or else end up with a really horrible policy made under more pressing conditions. I am not optimistic that we will make good choices. But I think our behavior in this century will determine the human future’s outlook for all of foreseeable human society.

I am committed to specific goals but I support all who are sincerely striving for a human future in space that is wise and sustainable. Good luck and God Bless to all of you out there. I am not a likely expert or member of the space community but I cherish this hope for an expanding future. Perhaps the humanist and amateurish perspective will cost me a few Facebook friends. I lost some over the years of all types and besides professionals in space matters who mattered to me even lately. However, I am grateful for the professionals on my list at the time of this writing

The crater cap colony concept itself in diagram

details of a fast colonial ship design.

4 Comments

Posted in Crater Cap Colonies, Environment, Frank W. Summers, lunar colonies, Moon, novels by Frank Summers

BP-Transocean Macondo Oil Leak Disaster Anniversary

Posted on April 20, 2011 | 1 comment

It is time to remeber that the oil disaster in the Gulf occurred almost a year ago. There are old problems syill being made worse. There are new problems still being identified. There are people sick and suffering. There are wildlife populations and habitats under stress. There are industries and employers in severe distress. There is a great deal we do not know. There is a great deal we are not ever likely to know.

Here are some links to things I wrote about the story:

1. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/08/22/the-bp-spill-and-the-lessons-we-will-have-to-unlearn/

2. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/a-tiny-bp-macondo-leak-round-up/

3. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/bp-has-announced-cementing-in-the-macondo-well/

4. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/looking-at-the-bp-macondo-oil-leak-today/

5.https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/why-the-oil-leak-in-the-gulf-has-dominated-this-blog/

6. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/bp-oil-leak-and-the-technology-we-do-not-have/

7. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/the-bp-oil-spill-the-anderson-cooper-response/

These are just a few of the many things that I have written. IF THE LINKS DO NOT WORK WHEN YOU CLICK ON THEM COPY THEM INTO YOUR BROWSER.

It is nota time for summing up all these matters and I doubt that this will be my las t note on this profile which touches on the subject. However, it is a time to to spend alittle while looking at where we are now. That means remebering where we have benn as well. That is the purpose of today’s note

1 Comment

Posted in Acadians, BP - British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, Environment, family, Gulf of Mexico, Ken Feinberg, Oil & Gas Industry, United States of America, Wetlands

Tagged , , , , ,

South Louisiana Blues

Posted on August 26, 2010 | Leave a comment

In my last post I blogged on the anniversaries of the 9-11 attacks and the Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg. But before we even get to those we have the anniversary of  Hurricane Katrina which I remember both as all Americans do and as a Louisiana native does. For me it falls into an arrangement with the memory of our devastating follow-up hurricane here in the western part of coastal Louisiana — Rita.

We face the uncertainty of this BP Oil Leak and we still deal with all the storm damage which is as bad as it is in part because of damage to the coast caused by other bad behavior from oil companies. Thank God we are struggling with all this because it proves we are not dead. There is a lot of sadness in the story of so much of the world. I think sadness is actually an important part of humanity and human life. However, we are really having our share here. We have known numerous very rough storms, the 9-11 attacks and the levee collapse that made Katrina what it became. Now we are dealing with the largest ecological disaster in our country’s history.

It is not that things cannot get worse. They can get a lot worse and very possible they will get a lot worse. There are some improvements in New Orleans since Katrina. Before Katrina seventy percent of New Orleans Schools were failing  now sixty percent are passing and only forty percent are failing. There is the Musicians Village put together by Harry Connick Jr. and the Marsalis family as well as their backers. There is the movement back of some celebrities and environmental lobbies who are investing talent and interest in rebuilding the city and the region.

I was partly inspired to write this post by shows I have seen on LPB lately as well as by Anderson Cooper’s show emphasizing the anniversary of Katrina. However, we face as many reminders of all of these crises as anyone would like pay attention to today and any day here on the coast..  

The story goes on but there is a lot of sadness in the story. Maybe the time to write some more music about all of this is very much here.

Leave a comment

Posted in 9-11 attacks, Acadians, Anderson Cooper, Arts, blogs, BP - British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, CNN, Environment, Gulf of Mexico, Ken Feinberg, Louisiana, Louisiana Musicians and Music, Music, Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics, Plaquemines Parish, United States of America, Vermilion Parish, Wetlands

A Tiny BP-Macondo Leak Round-up

Posted on August 20, 2010 | 1 comment

1. BP has brought a suit and is acting as a complaining witness for prosecution against two fisherman who it claims reported false fishing and related expenses and incomes on claim forms. I will try to follow that till later as it becomes clearer.

2.Ken Feinberg’s settlement fund like all before it and like almost all settlement funds requires those taking the money to promise not to sue and to give up the rights to sue. It appears that some people have felt misled in this process.

3. BP claims that there is not much leakage to speak of and will wait to put the relief well in place untill after Labor Day.

4. Despite these first three points and others I could mention but won’t it appears the wheels have not yet come off of this process and that is a good thing.

5. The moratorium continues to stir emotions we hope it is also producing excellent research and change for the better. There is no doubt it has a high expense side does it yield  a good profitable outcome?

1 Comment

Posted in Acadians, BP - British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, Environment, Frank W. Summers, Gulf of Mexico, Ken Feinberg, Oil & Gas Industry, United States of America, Wetlands

One of those rambling posts…

Posted on August 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

This is a rambling sort of blog post about a bunch of different things that have little in common except that I am interested in them right now.  This is a sort round-up post in the broadest sense. So here comes a numbered list folks….

1.  Despite disavowals  of doing so I have recently posted comments again on the Lords of the Blog and The Norton View in response to some of Lord Philip Norton’s posts on those sites.

2. I missed the New Orleans Saints preseason opener against the Minnesota Vikings without a really good excuse. Although this is only a glorified scrimmage (for the benefit of people who do not know our professional sports culture) it is still a bit shocking.

3. China is officially reported as the world’s second largest economy now. My own time in and involvement with China has a somehow slightly different light cast upon it because of these facts.

4. I bought birthday gifts all recent months but I have bought a birthday gift for my niece whose birthday is August 3rd, my sister whose birthday is August 5th, my sister-in-law whose birthday is August 8th and for each of three nephews who celebrated their birthdays together on the 14th of August. These sorts of calendrical anomalies really remind me of how limited my income is these days — but I did my best and hope it was OK…

5.The BP driller for the crucial relief well is a man named Wright with an impressive record and he feels that this is one of the toughest jobs he has ever done. He is also confident that he will succeed.

6. The name of the giant skimming ship that was sent here and did not work well in choppy seas was A Whale. This name has many associations for anyone here like anyone anywhere else. Acadians and the many other cultural groups have many people who use naturalistic names and appreciate them.  However, it is also eery for Acadians who see them selves as children of the Jonas in some ways as New Englanders relate to the Mayflower.  Jonas is the same personage as Jonah swallowed by (but also arguably saved ) by a whale. Nonetheless, this is not new because almost all sailors who read the Bible use Jonah as an unlucky term and Acadians are fairly unique among Judaeo-Christian seafarers in using or seeing the term distinctly. Neither Jonah nor his shipmates nor his ship were destroyed in the story after all.

7.  I had a very nice niece with one of my nieces today. While at lunch we ran into my ex-wife’s paternal aunt’s husband and his son and two of his grandsons. We  chatted and I introduced everybody. All of this makes me revisit my past which I am always doing anyway.

8. Both of my brothers who are fairly recently married have wives that are expecting and one nears delivery while another is to find out tomorrow if she is expecting twins.  All of this makes me daydream about my future which I am always doing anyway.

9. In the last few days I have bought eggs, bacon, varied canned goods, sodas, some condiments, sliced ham, milk, breakfast cereal, jalapeno and cheese pull bread, frozen fish and varied paper and soap products. In some houses and in this house at other times that would amount to really shopping and stocking up but here and now it amounts to getting oddments necessary to mostly sustain people in using up what we have before it goes bad and postponing the real shopping until such a fairly regular massive undertaking is ready to be undertaken.

10. In life there are different kinds of highs and different kinds of lows. Right now I think I am in the weary not entirely discontent blues.

Leave a comment

Posted in Acadians, Environment, Lords of the Blog, Louisiana, New Orleans Saints, Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

America and the Next Big Thing

Posted on August 12, 2010 | Leave a comment

We are at a place in our history where we must see real change soon.  The truth is that broad and significant change is one of the greater risks which a society can undertake. All though I do advocate substantial change I don’t do it in a way that is blind to the risks.  America is still a self-perceived success by almost every measure and so we have more chances to create the perception of both failure and oppression than in any other country almost. I want to list here a few things that would be addressed by the model which would be addressed by this model and in short paragraphs try to disclose why the solutions are needed as well as how they would work.

First, the transition would seek to abolish most forms of “affirmative action” and forced integration programs while at the same time outlawing under the new constitution certainly the Union and the DIG and in some areas the States and Constitutional Jurisdictions  creating legally required and enforced segregation by sex, race, religion and other  lines by which the have forced such divisions in the past. Family Associations will be forced to work with the Empress’s Bureau of Women’s Affairs and encouraged to work with the Mistress of Ceremonies in her programs and will have their own programs to improve the lot of women. Some federal programs will under the constitution be required to seek parity between the sexes. A great expense of setting up Possession and Jurisdictions will be undertaken once and then some set-asides and outreach will help to preserve these communities above a minimum standard. However, this will all be much cheaper socially and economically than maintaining the standard of various industries we will seek in the States throughout the Union.

Second, we will address population policy in challenging way which is comprehensive and civilized and less certain than the horrors some would impose. On the other hand we will avoid the certain destruction that lazy blindness will bring as others would like to see us proceed.    In a generation if the new regime endure America would be on a never easy path to a more or less stable prosperity. It would do so in a way that was objectively friendly to humanity as a whole whether seen as such or not.

Third, we would create representation in the House for military bases with supplementary votes for service. We would include General and Admirals among the newly founded Censors. Also one of the parts of the Five Fold Nobility would be the Nobility of the Sword including only military officers. In addition, we will have many new services whether Imperial or Jurisdictional that shall qualify for participation in Nobility of the Sword. All of this will be done in an anti-conscription transition that seeks to build and consolidate yet diversify many forms of value in our armed services. This will create a more hopeful military future.

Fourth, we will invest hugely in creating shared efficient values in rewards. The building of the infrastructure will supply employment and liquidity during the transition, Guildhalls, fiefdoms, family association infrastructures, new military services,  DIG Zone development and other areas of expenditure will create demand. The purchase price of fiefdoms, monies collected for family tax, border fees for Imperial services, forced labor for convicts and illegal aliens and the reclaiming of waste will produce new sources of income  as will the liquidation to new services of much existing military surplus materiel. However, as this process goes forward we will be moving towards a society where most ego needs and heart’s desire needs are not met by a limitless desire for more expensive individual standards of living. Sharing in family and community will be incentivized. During this period of growth and liquidation we will also transition to a floating quatrimetalism as our monetary policy. The new money will tighten credit and secure our credit to some real degree always. Basically coins will make up a fixed percentage of all issued money value and count. All coins will be required to have a steel inner and outer ring. The coins will  be stringable like old Chinese coins. The four metals used will be Gold, Silver, Copper and Platinum. There will be mixed metal and pure metal coins and issues will vary with the markets by formulas designed to maximize stability. All banks will be forced to hold one percent of their assets in these value metal coins after a transition period, The Imperial House and Household Bank and the Federal Reserve as well as the  Senior Invited Guilds and the Imperial Association of Nobility and Aristocracy will form a very limited Bank of the Federal American Empire of the United States largely focusing on Specie issues.

Fifth, addressing waste and creating new habitat we will join other policies to protect our environment for years to come and hopefully on a path to whatever “forever” can mean. That is our real duty as stewards of the most precious and irreplaceable trusts we hold.

Sixth we will transform foreign policy. The new policy is going to tend toward greater stability. We will pursue many paths in seeking long-term secure relationships. However, foreign policy is different in that war can come in any size at any time. that is the truth of human affairs. It is a truth we cannot afford to forget.   

Thus we are not seeking the right answers right now. We are drug addicts seeking spending and consumption alone as though we needed only those things. It is still possible although painful to find a path forward that will not be utterly austere and yet will address our needs. It will not be possible much longer.

Leave a comment

Posted in Environment, family, Geopolitics, Population policy, United States Armed Forces, United States of America, Western civilization

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

BP has announced cementing in the Macondo well

Posted on August 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

BP has announced it has cemented in the Macondo well from above.  It claims it will still seal things off from the bottom through the relief well. This is good news. Let us see what happens next.

Leave a comment

Posted in Acadians, BP - British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, Environment, media, Oil & Gas Industry, United States of America, Wetlands

Awareness of Pain: A Post With Many Links

Posted on August 5, 2010 | Leave a comment

I think that most people who read this blog with any sense of fairness will recognize that I advocate much more sweeping and radical constitutional change in the United States than almost anyone with prominent access to prominent media advocates. It is a basic truism (and almost a basic truth) that in order to justify advocating  radical change a responsible person must have already found or must promptly find very serious problems and dangers that justify undertaking the risks inherent in making large changes. It is also fair to assume that regular readers will notice that in fact I have often pointed out very serious problems in this country. This post is about the awareness of those problems and dangers which beset our country. 

There is a film which by using Homer’s Odyssey set in the south of this country shows a bit of the gritty reality of our near past. It is part of a method of a awareness to watch such films and in that film there is song. The song does not  reflect the situation in the film. Go to the next link to find the film However, these lyrics are not taken directly from the film.

“Oh Brother Where Art Thou?” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190590/

Big Rock Candy Mountain

        C                                    F                     C
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, there’s a land that’s bright and fair,
           F               C                   Am               G7
For the doughnuts grow on bushes, and there’s lots of cookies there,
         C                                F                C
For the dogs and cats are happy, and the sun shines every day,
            F         C              F          C
There are birds and bees, and the bubble-gum trees,
         F         C                    F         C
by the lemonade springs, where the whippoorwill sings
        G7                C
in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

It seems a pleasant and fun place doesn’t it? Yet we also live in beautiful world and being aware of it and what endangers it is also a sacred trust. Here is a post where I linked to others sharing the burden and duty of that awareness:  https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/bp-spill-environmental-awareness-links-questions/ 

Let’s get back to that song set in a film reworking Homer’s Odyssey with slightly different lyrics longer and a bit more on our point but similar. 

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, the houses are built of blocks
And the little streams of sody pop come trickling down the rocks,
The soldiers there are made of lead, and they are very brave,
There’s a lake of stew, and ice cream too
You can paddle all around in a paper canoe,
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

If the soldiers were all made of lead one cannot help but wonder if it would be less important to fight just wars nobly and to seek peace. If ice cream fell like snow and lakes were full of stew then perhaps our agriculture and employment policy would matter less.  But for now we must be aware of how living things, people and communities do find their sustenance. Here is a post where I linked to others who were making us aware of what was at risk in the BP-Macondo Oil Leak:  https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/the-bp-transocean-gushers-risk-some-links-and-notes/

Now, we can return to  song which stands in for many other points of view. I recall, but have not checked, that in the film Brother Where Art Thou? they used the version of the song where the word “frogs” is replaced with “cops”. I think the cops version is the original there would be less food in a world where frog legs were toothpicks and that does not go with the song. On the other hand for someone who wants a free lunch the world would be more abundant if there were only cops with wooden legs and bulldogs with rubber teeth keeping him from other people’s property. 

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, the frogs have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth,
and the hens lay hard-boiled eggs
There’s chocolate pie in all the trees, and jam in all the lakes,
Oh, I’m going to go where the wind don’t blow,
there’s a big free show, and candy snow,
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

The song is fun. Living in a world where policy is made on the basis of the idea the song represents but reality is what it is  would not  be fun for a whole lot of people. In many ways that is the world we live in today. Below is a link to a biographical entry describing the life and work of the physician who discovered that the horrors and deformities of leprosy must be understood almost entirely as resulting from the victim’s loss of sensitivity to pain.  

The Wikipedia Biography of Paul Wilson Brand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wilson_Brand

The use of leprosy and its horrors as a metaphor for the results of many of the ills of humanity and  society are not starting with this blog post. In fact the next link is one to a poll as to whether the denial of sin by atheists is precisely that kind of leprosy  we are discussing:

http://jyte.com/cl/pain-insensitivity-is-to-lepers-as-denial-of-sin-is-to-athiests

Old Testament prophets decrying impiety and humanity, Romantic poets decrying the loss of understanding of nature, Revolutionaries decrying the loss of national integrity or sanity — these are  all examples of a nation’s pain response and awareness. Life is made less frivolous and harder because of the pain we feel when we want to lose ourselves in the moment or the life time of doing whatever it is we would rather be doing. Documentarians have played an important role in recent decades and over much of the last century in pointing out what is wrong  with the world — a useful thing to know.

The first shows a part of the truth of how America becoming play obsessed and focused only on market discipline can play out in a complex world. There is a lot more that is only hinted at such as the destruction of some of the local Mardi Gras and Carnival traditions by visitors who only come for debauchery without the limits of traditions. There is also the fact that things may be much worse than the show portrays in China since they are not exposing anything but what they are told willingly enough. 

Chinese workers export Mardi Gras in Mardi Gras Made in China:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436569/

The second film shows how complex struggles of oil and gas profits, ethnic values and wetlands management affect all of Louisiana and the nation. However, this is done in the context of a close-up portrayal of a few crawfishermen in the Atchafalaya who are not even filmed in an entirely accurate or honest way. The film is in many ways anti-Acadian in it biases and is only forced in the other direction by Katrina. The tendency is to represent swampers as typical Acadians and to represent all swampers as more cut-off from the larger economy than they are. But regardless of where it comes from it says good things with important images.

Angels of the Basin:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1338547/

Then we have the vast problem of angry,ignorant and hate-filled black racist destroying this country in so many ways with the support and formation that has poured in from the west-hating Moslem world for centuries but especially the last fifty years. We ignore all the signs and are headed to destruction but at least our reports give us some of the relevant factoids:  

Omar Thornton ‘s recent shooting is a good example: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20012557-504083.html

However, we have many others as well. We can turn to Wikipedia to remember the Fort Hood Shooting. However let us not remember how much racial-ethnic and religious and social forms of non-awareness contributed to this disaster. The way we have handled the aftermath is a terrible disgrace as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting

Then we have two movies that show a somewhat unfavorable vision of the military and those who serve in it as well as showing why the enemy would not be so ready to flee at their approach. However, the movies are also full both of whole and partial truths as well as humane insights.  I recommend watching them both with a critical eye  but not disparaging the critical eye they turn towards our country and armed forces.

The Lucky Ones: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0981072/

Brothers: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765010/

The truth is that we have so very much to do as soon as possible if we are to be in any way successful as a society. We have many enemies and competitors around the world who will try to keep us from making and then securing the right transitions. However, we are full of internal problems that are far more dangerous. The time to act is here and will not last forever. However, awareness of the pain is the first step towards healing the wounds and pains.

In the models for change I have described here I have set forth a path that can lead to a btter future. But getting there will not be cheap and easy.

Leave a comment

Posted in Acadians, blogs, BP - British Petroleum, Environment, family, Frank W. Summers, Gulf of Mexico, media, Oil & Gas Industry, Royalty and Empire, United States of America, Western civilization, Wetlands

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,