Further Adventures of a Space Cadet

As you may know, Google posted a very fun "April Fool" project in 2008 called "Virgle the Aventure of Many Lifetimes", with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin presenting, and joined up with Virgin founder Richard Branson. Original page is at http://www.google.com/onceuponatime/virgle/ Also included is the Virgle Channel http://www.youtube.com/projectvirgle featuring Branson.

Key to this concept is understanding that to achieve this vision, there must be some major on-orbit infrastructure to support construction, development and launch of these exploration initiatives. My 1979 thesis outlines this strategy in a Relevance Tree and shows how a Low Earth Orbit platform, working in concert with lunar mining and large vehicle production outside of earth's gravity well allows for effective use of labor and materials, as well as providing "many futures" rather than just one projection line (dotted). This permits industrial development and production of energy facilities using solar power, which can be beamed to earth as well as used on-orbit. This removes the carbon production cycle from the earth's atmosphere because major construction activity, mining and energy production are done outside of the atmosphere, and pollution from launch, manufacturing and transit are also off-planet. There is also a serious need for the earth observation platform rehabilitation, especially now that tracking global warming and its effects are a crucial dataset. Additional important needs for a low-earth orbit presence are space debris removal and asteroid tracking/deflection.

If the US military budget could be used for this constructive effort in concert with other countries, we could avoid the massive waste on useless military hardware and overblown budgets for failed political interventions, and actually increase the GDP significantly while the government contractors still get their contracts. Win-win. Note the April 20 NYT article about how contractors are "fed" massive contracts and manipulated by the Pentagon. MESSAGE MACHINE; Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand
"Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration's war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized."This approach to shifting military expense to where it is most effective in US long-term security interests fully supports the (Secretary of Defense) Gates doctrine.

The STAIF conference is where the REAL industry development is happening for studies of the components of human habitation in space. They accept research papers from folks in the industry, and have had some very interesting scenarios presented of human habitation development and on-orbit infrastructure for space exploration.

http://www.spaceagepub.com/subscribers/LDarchive/LD20030205.html

My presentation in 2003 was right behind Harrison Schmitt's proposal for a lunar mining colony, presented again later in San Francisco last year in February:

http://starbulletin.com/2007/02/18/news/story02.html

Jean Nouvel awarded 2008 Pritzker Prize

From the Los Angeles Times 3/31/08, a quote from Nouvel:

"For me, every building is an adventure," Nouvel said. "Every project is an adventure. I research every project. I talk to a lot of people. Every building has a relationship to the climate, to the wind, to the colors of the buildings around it. I arrive at a concept with all the parameters in place. When I have all of these constraints, I begin. Without constraints, architecture does not exist. You are a sculptor."

Nouvel said he is determined to resist what he views as the homogenization of world urbanism.

"When you go around the world, you see all the same buildings, and you feel like you're in the same place," he said. "I fight all the time for the specificity of architecture. I fight against global architecture. While some architects aim for a standout," Nouvel said," the designs of his buildings are inseparable from their settings."

"I feel like every site has a right to have an architectural aesthetic," he said. "Architects today try to create a little world, a petit monde, a micro monde. It's important to try to create a building in its context. "Every building must be the "missing piece of the puzzle. It must impossible to put the building in another place," he said. "That is my criterion."

An interior video of his ground-breaking Arab Institute in Paris, among others, is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sapHcCYIFrE&NR=1

It's an adventure going up inside after watching the patterned wall's steel "irises" close down in unison as the sun hits the south wall. Paris, 1997.

State of the World 2008: Innovations for a Sustainable Economy

Update March 2009: State of the World for 2009, Into a Warming World, How to Survive Climate Change, is now available. Key strategies are discussed for dealing with the consequences of 200 years of industrial development and resource consumption.

Download chapters from the World Watch Institute, State of the World, published in January 2008, which discusses the means of developing sustainable economies and benchmarking progress in terms of natural capital. Interactive discussions and key strategies are listed, also.

Ecology of Commerce in Industry, an example

About: Ray C. Anderson, Founder and Chairman, Interface, Inc.

The story is now legend: the "spear in the chest" epiphany Ray Anderson experienced when he first read Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce, seeking inspiration for a speech to an Interface task force on the company's environmental vision. Fourteen years and a sea change later, Interface, Inc., is nearly 50 percent towards the vision of "Mission Zero," the journey no one would have imagined for the company or the petroleum-intensive industry of carpet manufacturing which has been forever changed by Anderson's vision. Mission Zero is the company's promise to eliminate any negative impact it may have on the environment, by the year 2020, through the redesign of processes and products, the pioneering of new technologies, and efforts to reduce or eliminate waste and harmful emissions while increasing the use of renewable materials and sources of energy.

See the story at the Interface website, now a Vision Statement for manufacturing carpet

Industry Week article at http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=15696

Galapagos National Park & Marine Reserve

Galapagos, located on the Equator at the juncture of the East & West trade winds, the Humboldt and South Equatorial currents, and the tectonic fissure of the Nazca and Cocos plates, is a forge of new life forms. At 600 miles from Ecuador, it is isolated enough that the evolutionary vectors in simple ecosystems and the few animal populations are visible right before your eyes. The stunning oceanic vistas, volcanic peaks and lava shores with low-growth tropical forest, empty of human habitation, is an immersion in the natural world that is rare today. Peace and connectedness, life and death, rhythms of storm, rain and sun, remind me of the vital essence being lost to human development. View a panorama here. Fortunately, it is now a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It was encouraging to learn that these established ecological reserves are able to trump industrial development vectors once they are established, such as the Gulf of California at Baja, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is the focus of port and rail proposals to accommodate shipping needs for products produced and consumed between China, US and Latin America. The Nature Conservancy is also establishing projects in Baja's Sea of Cortez.

Artist's presence dissolves into the earth

Take a look at the January/February 2008 issue of Orion magazine and read about Healing Sculpture: Art installations that help restore damaged watersheds, by Daniel McCormick. Sculptures sited in watersheds act as silt traps that allow rivers to heal. These sculptures slowly dissolve as the stream banks stabilize and nature takes over.

See the article at Orion

And peace on Earth

My Christmas greetings and New Year's hope for a new approach to global trade and diplomacy, as well as our ability to create sustainable places. We're in dynamic balance with all of nature's forces, and "technology" seems to be helping us recognize that. Earth studies assisted by satellite imagery and GPS data that reveals geography and terrain, water flows and weather can help us "Design With Nature" as Ian McHarg has famously written. GIS databases are helping us to see and understand our impacts in the natural and urban environments.

This image is from South Africa; the bush has supported a stunning array of wildlife and native peoples since before the birth of humanity in Africa.