Over the last few years, advancements in the science of exo-planet discovery have allowed astronomers to detect smaller and smaller planetary bodies. Initial attempts at exo-planet discovery relied on a doppler shift seen in the light coming from a distant star as the star responded to the pull of gravity from an unseen planetary body whizzing about it. This resulted in the discovery of planets several times the size of Jupiter with orbits practically skimming the star's surface. Astronomers have speculated that these unseen planets are something that exist in the range of very large gas giants, big cousins of Jupiter or Saturn, or unrealized brown dwarf stars.

Now, new techniques have developed to allow us to identify planets in the range of about 10 or less earth masses. These small planets are undoubtedly terrestrial type planets, which is to say they are primarily composed of rock with an iron core. In our solar system, the terrestrial planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. This is great news, and further refinement will undoubtedly result in the discovery of planets with masses very similar to Earth's. The problem is that the technical term "terrestrial" has been supplanted in the press by the term "earth-like", which conveys an entirely different meaning to the public at large. I think this was done by well-meaning astronomers in order to add spice to their press releases, but I'm not sure the public is benefiting. Let's examine two examples of the new "earth-like" exo-planets and see how closely they resemble our planet "Earth".

The "earth-like" exo-planet revolving around Gliese 876, named Gliese_876d, is only 6 to 8 times the mass of earth. This is far smaller than the Jupiter class planets previously discovered, but the surface gravity is between 1.8 and 2 times the surface gravity of earth, so if you weigh 140 pounds on earth, you'ld weigh between 252 and 280 pounds on Gliese_876d. The atmosphere could potentially be quite a bit thicker and heavier, assuming the planet had one. Not too bad so far, but let's continue. This planet orbits 2 million miles away from it's red dwarf sun, with an orbital period of 1.94 days. The sun in the sky would appear to be just a bit larger in size than a softball held at arm's length. To keep time there, you'ld just have to watch the star constellations zip by, assuming you were concerned with watching the clock. The problem is that the planet's rotation is tidally locked to it's sun, meaning one side of the planet always faces the sun, so on that side of the world there is really only one time anyway, noon. Being noon all the time, and being only 2 million miles away from a large thermonuclear furnace, the "noon-time" temperature would be in the 200 to 400 degrees C range, meaning that lakes of molten lead could exist there.

The far side of the planet, being in eternal darkness, would have the potential to be as cold as the darkest spot in space, just a few degrees above absolute zero, but that would be the case if no atmosphere were present. If the atmosphere consisted primarily of CO2, which would not be all that unlikely since most of the atmosphere's lighter gases may have dissipated into space due to the high temperatures on the day side, then the greenhouse effect would keep the planet uniformly hot, regardless of the lack of rotation. But assuming that the atmosphere hadn't completely dissipated or been reduced to primarily CO2 (very unlikely), the only place life might exist is close to the terminator between day and night, but I don't find this scenario very likely (Good stuff for science fiction, but not very likely in reality). The truth is, peculiarities of Gliese_876d make our own planets of Venus and Mercury look far more "earth-like" by comparison.

The next example of an "earth-like" exo-planet is OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, a planet that is 5 times the size of Earth orbitting it's red dwarf or white dwarf sun, orbitting about 2 to 4 times more distant than the Earth's orbit is from our sun. Since the planet's sun is very small, the surface temperature is theorized to be -220 degrees C, which puts it on par with the surface temperature of Pluto. Not even remotely conducive to life. The thing that makes this planet of interest at all is that it's size and orbit aren't that far out of the norm of what might be found in our own solar system, but from a layman's point of view this planet is nowhere near earthlike.

"Earth-like" should mean "something like "Earth" -- not a giant version of Pluto, not a bigger, hotter, faster version of Mercury, not a rotund version of Venus, but something like Earth. A place where living things might have a chance of existing. In my opinion, scientists should use the proper term "terrestrial" and then only if they define the term to mean a rocky planet with an iron core. Otherwise the term "earthlike" raises false hopes that we have found planets like our own. The good news with these announcements is that at least we're rapidly refining our ability to find planets orbitting around other stars, and that there are a lot of exo-planets out there.

NASA's New Paradigm: Recycle, Repackage, Regurgitate

ESAS and CLV - Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed... I am not enthused with NASA's proposed CLV launch vehicle and it's related kin. I can't help feeling that it is a profoundly bad design coming right out of the gate. It would be far better to just buy more Soyuz's for all our LEO human transportation needs, and launch extra-terrestrial craft (sans crew) on big dumb boosters. The following piece is entirely tongue in cheek. Any similarity to real astronauts is not intended, and no astronauts were harmed in the writing of this interview. Welcome to a bold new future where parts from the past are taped together to make a new safer Shuttle replacement. Through the use of temporal transmorgraphication, a representative of freeluna.com was able to travel into one of our possible futures to interview Richard Rocket, NASA Astronaut, and get the latest scoop on the CLV. This interview took place on July 4th, 2014, on the eve of its first launch... freeluna(FL): Hello Commander Rocket, thank you again for granting us this interview on the eve of the inaugural flight of the CLV and as I understand it your first launch into space... Richard Rocket(RR): Hey, the pleasure's all mine Mr. Clawson, I'm one of your biggest fans, you know. And please just call me 'Ricky', that's what all my friends do. 'Ricky Rocket the Rocketeer', they all like to say. By the way, how did you manage to get so rich, might I ask? You've even got more money than that old Bill Gates guy. Gee, this is such a blast -- meeting a guy like you! FL: OK uh.. Ricky.. I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. I suppose it's pretty much common knowledge in this timespace that the root of our success was our development of temporal transmorgraphication, which led to our insights into the effects of global warming on the California coastline, which in turn led to our heavy investment into designer sandbags back in 2006, and the rest of the story is pretty much history. It's through this same temporal transmorgraphication technology that this interview will actually be published in 2005. RR: Wow! That's amazing! Hey, let me give a shout out to my folks! Hey Mom! Hey Dad! I'm an astronaut. Can you believe it! All those frat parties didn't screw me up, like you thought they would, so get off my case, why don't ya? Hey, Mr. Clawson, can you see into my future too? FL: Yeah, er, possibly, but maybe we should wait until the end of the interview. RR: OK, whatever you say, you're the boss. FL: Commander, er, Ricky, tomorrow's the big day. You're going to take a ride up to the ISS on a new rocket design. Do you feel that this design is safe. RR: Oh, yeah, it's safe. Real safe. I have no doubts. FL: No doubts at all, really? I have to say I was very surprised to see the CLV's final cut. The design has changed quite a bit from it's original 2005 inception. There seems to be several additions to the rocket that we in 2005 never anticipated. For instance, the addition of the Passive Stabilizer Boom (PSB) and Vitreous Launch Tower (VLT). Why were these added? RR: Yeah well, the PSB was added because the original CG {editor's note: Center of Gravity} was so far behind the CP {editor's note: Center of Pressure} that we either needed to chuck the SRB, which would mean a whole new redesign -- and who wants that, or simply fix the CP by adding the PSB or stick as we like to call it. Given our schedule, we picked the stick. After we went with the stick, the CLV became the tallest rocket in history, nearly 250 meters or 750 feet tall, as a consequence we needed to look at a new launch tower. That's where a team of engineers in Atlanta came up with the VLT. I don't really know all that much about the VLT and why they used glass. I'm just a flyboy, I'm not very big into materials. FL: I see. But wouldn't you say that the PSB adds weight to an already heavy vehicle? RR: Not really, it's basically an aerogel core wrapped in Carbon-Carbon. Light as a feather -- hell, light as air! I used to have a chunk of the stuff floating around my office somewhere. I wish I could show it to you, but I seem to have lost it in the last move. FL: What about the addition of the manual ignition system or MIS? RR: MIS? We call it 'the fuse' around the office. Yeah, I really don't understand that one much myself. If it were up to me we'ld still be using the electrics that were used with the shuttle's SRBs. But I was told we have alot of margin in the CLV's performance, so it isn't so critical about launch timing, and since we only go up on one SRB, though if you ask me you can never have enough SRBs, we don't need the critical ignition timing that the old shuttle needed. So I guess for cost savings or some other reason, the ground crew boys suggested the fuse. FL: How does the MIS work, exactly? RR: Well tomorrow, when the countdown hits T-20, a special ground crew team lights off the end of 'the Fuse' and immediately egresses from the VLT via the Geronimo line. About 14 seconds later, they hit the end of the line and high tail it into a special blast bunker which is about a thousand feet away from the launch site. It's pretty exciting stuff, I gather. FL: So basically, once the fuse is lit, there's no turning back. You're on your way up? RR: Yeah, that's about the size of it. FL: What if a problem were to arise in the last 20 seconds prior to launch? RR: I guess it would depend on just how bad the problem was. We would either be looking at a landing in Spain or the Atlantic, or maybe an escape tower event. That would sure be exciting. FL: Escape tower event? Can I assume that is when the escape tower would be used to pull the CEV away from the CLV? RR: Yeah, that's it. Of course if we had a PSB failure, that would be bad. FL: Bad? What do you mean by bad? RR: Well, imagine a 250 foot long firecracker zipping along the ground at about 400 or so miles an hour, whacking this, whacking that, going every which way. Now even if the escape tower works, the CEV will be landing pretty much right in the middle of all that mayhem. Maybe we'ld survive, maybe we wouldn't. I sure wouldn't want to be anywhere near here when that happened. FL: Where do you suppose you'ld rather be? RR: I dunno, with my family in Pensacola. FL: I see. Thanks again for time. Our temporal transmorgraphication window is about to close, so we have to wrap things up. I want to thank you again for letting us interview you, Ricky. RR: Hey the pleasure's all mine, really. And, now that we're at the end of the interview, can you tell me something about my future? FL: Uh, sure, I suppose, but I'm really not supposed to. RR: Oh please! please! please! please! Just tell me how the launch is going to go tomorrow. FL: Er.. I suggest you call in sick tomorrow. Maybe spend the day at home with that family of yours. ..END..

Introducing Space Icons, a way for freeluna.com to acquire desperately needed funds and to give people realistic, space-related desktop icons for their computers. Space Icons started out as a development experiment for me using Visual C++. As I come up with more icons, I will update the Space Icons link and email new versions of space icons to those who register the product with me via email. Many of the pictures which are the basis for space icons are from various places across the web, so I am not charging for space icons directly; only soliciting donations to freeluna.com. Check them out. Play with them. If you like them, please donate. A new compilation of the file was uploaded on July 21, 2005 which fixes a position shift issue with the swirling black hole empty and full wastebaskets.

BACK TO LUNAR COLONIZATION

I believe that the long-term survival of humanity depends on the colonization of space. Without it, nations will be forced to compete with each other on a planet with ever-diminishing resources and shrinking space. Given the level of our technologies for mass destruction and the relative ease of access to those technologies, this can only lead to disaster. If our dealings with North Korea and Al Queda have taught us anything, it is that (1) there are quite a few people in this world that have viewpoints that are positively alien to our own and that are positively hostile towards are way of life, and (2) that a small group of fanatics can easily disrupt world events if they are willing to do the unthinkable to accomplish their goals. This forces us to conclude that the survival of our civilization, even our species is less tenuous than we ever imagined, and therefore the need for space colonization is the more critical.

Many people have told me that space colonization is just wrong. I have been told that before mankind spends any more effort getting into space we must solve our problems at home. That our bad habits of destroying environments and fighting wars will carry out into space. That humanity needs to "learn it's lessons" here on earth before it is ever allowed to contaminate the rest of the cosmos. My response is as follows: First off, we are living in our own cradle, and there is only so many lessons we can learn within it. We can learn a lot more by climbing out of our cradle and being exposed to the universe beyond. In space, there is a opportunity to evolve physically and culturally in ways we can't even conceive. For instance, if you examine evolution, you will see that living thing's shapes and behaviors tend to be shaped by their environments. The environment of earth is a place of profound plenty in terms of the critical elements to our survival when compared to our local region of space. The tendency of this environment is such that lifeforms on this planet get to be successful by exploiting the resources of this environment and crowding out other species. If we were to die out and rats were to take our place at the top of the evolutionary ladder, they would behave in exactly the same way humans have done -- by dominating all other species and covering the earth with rats. Just as the dinosaurs did before us.

The environment of space is completely different. Any planet within reach of our technology is profoundly barren in the stuff life needs to survive in comparison to the earth. There are no open lakes of water for us to drink or air to breath on Mars or the moon. Nor is there much Nitrogen for plants to turn into our protein. In order for humans to just survive, our thinking will have to change in profound ways. In space, we will have to take our environments with us. As we grow, we will need to scavange what meager resources exist to support life wherever we go. We will need to cherish the few resources we have. Recycling will be an imperative for our survival, not just a good idea. We will need to keep our environments healthy by carefully maintaining our own ecosystems. Instead of simply competing with other species, we will need to learn how to cooperate with them. This is what space has to offer humans. Alien environments to profoundly alter human thinking.

There is quite a bit of information on lunar colonization and space colonization in general available on the web.   If you are just beginning to check out space colonization, make sure you at least visit the links page, which covers many sites that will be helpful in getting you started.  Meanwhile, here is a list of articles and sections currently available on this site:
 

Please check back from time to time and see how you like the site as it grows. If you have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know. I can always use constructive criticism.

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contact:  Bill Clawson

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