Ashden Awards Reward Energy Innovation

It's seems easy for Americans to complain about the cost of gasoline, even as they line up to buy the latest eight-cylinder behemoth offered by one of the Big Three US Automakers. Of course, not as many of us are showing up at US dealerships as they once were, so maybe we are finally beginning to see the error of our ways.

Meanwhile, the US government has done little to offer its citizens any useful power alternatives. And it's not just about the price of gasoline.
It's how much it costs to heat our homes, schools and hospitals; how we have major power outages because it snowed too much and the power lines snapped, or because it was too windy.
How we have all the ugly power lines draped across our beautiful countryside in the first place--through every town, every city, from every church and school and hospital, and how we still don't have enough energy to make available to everyone.

Heating oil, natural gas, coal--every fossil fuel known to man has been tried, tested and integrated into our national infrastructure as surely as "Mom" and "apple pie." All while we look askance at any attempt to make things better. No electric cars or even mass public transportation systems are being floated as possible solutions to the US energy crisis.
And it is a crisis.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has created a fund for wealthier citizens to donate money to citizens unable to pay their heating bills as a way of keeping people from freezing to death this winter. But the city is only facilitating the giving, not offering any solutions to the long-term problem.

At this point people usually ask, "What can the city do?" My answer: PLENTY.

But if you don't believe me, look at what's being accomplished in places we commonly refer to as the "Third World."
Since 2003, The Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy have rewarded what they call "developing communities" for devising renewable sources of energy such as, micro-damming projects, solar energy and bio-gas plants.

Some villages in Northern India are now completely solar-powered; prisons in Kigali, Rwanda, totally supplied by renewable bio-gas for cooking; fuel efficient stoves for women in Pakistan; even a small roof-mounted wind turbine developed by a fellow in the UK that produces up to 80 percent of household power usage are all recent Ashden Award winners.

In Afghanistan, where US re-building efforts have seemed to do some good, the entire nation is using wireless communication networks to keep in touch, foregoing the need for wires strung from corner to corner of their mountainous nation. And while they might not have to worry about an errant snow-storm wreaking havoc in the desert, the effort has also prevented terrorist disruption of the communications grid.

It seems to me the US is in a dangerous place: Working so hard to maintain its edge against other "developed nations" it may soon find itself at the mercy of smaller nations with more technologically advanced infrastructure, and therefore, much lower fuel consumption bills.

In the meantime, I will continue my exploration of new, simpler energy alternatives by spotlighting some of the many previous Ashden Award winners at SpaceBlog Alpha. Maybe one of their ideas will appeal to one of my readers, and maybe that reader will revolutionize the way his small town gets its power and that will make neighboring towns jealous and seek to copy their ideas and maybe that will lead to a nationwide energy revolution...

We can only hope.

Welcome to Spaceport USA!

The way people have been talking, it's as if spaceports are suddenly popping up on the American horizon like dandelions after a rainstorm in April.
Wisconsin, Florida, Oklahoma, California and New Mexico have all been in the news lately, announcing plans to pursue the investment of state funds in the development of private spaceports. Each claims the burgeoning "Space Tourism" industry will eventually provide jobs, businesses and tax revenue to states that make the initial investment.
Florida has plans for multiple private structures, plus Cape Canaveral, so let's hope the benefits of this not-even-fledgling (nobody has made a single penny, yet) industry come sooner rather than later.
But all this talk of new development and interest in space technology may be slightly misleading, however, because the United States had a wealth of spaceports before the space-tourism industry was even a dream. In fact, currently the US is crawling with sites to launch just about any kind of rocket, spaceship or experimental aircraft you can imagine.

As we begin the journey from Earth-bound life to being a Spacefaring economy, it's important we not put the cart before the horse. We can't just pin our hopes, dreams and valuable investment dollars on every crazy rocket-scientist who promises they can do it faster, better and cheaper.
Let's see the proof inside the pudding; You've shown me page after page of successful computer simulations, now build one and let's see it fly.
I realize it takes a substantial investment on the part of the designer, millions of dollars in fact, and that this money needs to have a return-on-investment high enough to warrant its risk. But, those risks are associated with successfully launching a craft and bringing it home, not establishing an industry.
How do we know what form this new industry will take? How do we know what type of launch and recovery system it will use? What type of fuel? How many ships will there be? How many will last, how many will fade away? How many spaceship companies can be supported by the people with enough disposable income to book a flight?
And before you attempt to answer any of those questions, consider this:
Currently teams are working to develop a Space Elevator. Even NASA believes the idea has merit. Were this to happen in the next decade, which is part of the plan, then spacecraft design would likely shift to things that don't require a ground-based launch.
They'll only need to build ships that are space-worthy, able to propel themselves through the vacuum, not break free from Earth's gravity. That's a complete paradigm shift from what we are doing now.
Who will use all the spaceports then? Will everyone switch to the new technology? Will we need so many spaceports, in so many places?
With that in mind, it might be wise for every politician eager to build a new spaceport to slow down, take a deep breath and see what happens in the next few years.
We already have an abundance of places to launch the next generation of space ships. What we really need now are the ships themselves....

US Opts Out of Kyoto Again: We Oughta Be Ashamed of Ourselves

Some of you following the action at SpaceBlog Alpha might have wondered why I wrote a Post, Friday, on the US stance against the Kyoto Protocol. It's a fair question with a complicated answer.
In what amounted to an International incident, at last week's global summit on climate change, U.S. negotiator on climate change, Harlan Watson, walked out of a session designed only to create an agreement on international verbal cooperation.
In other words, the Bush Administration doesn't even want to talk about it. It's a non-starter.
That's a real shame. Especially when you consider much smaller nations such as Singapore, with much more limited resources, are enforcing stricter carbon emission regulations than us and will likely ratify the Kyoto Protocol very soon.
While emissions from the wealthiest nations participating declined about 5 percent over 1995 levels, ours grew by a whopping 13.1 percent.
You might wonder what the Kyoto Protocol has to do with Space exploration. Plenty.
The Kyoto Protocol is meant to deter the creation of new greenhouse gases, eventually reducing their production level to zero. These gases are known Ozone destroyers and trap heat close to the planet, thus creating the very real global warming effect we are currently suffering from. The busiest and most destructive hurricane season on record, no more icy Halloween nights in the Midwest (I know, I live there) and generally poor weather everywhere, all point to one thing: Our environment is changing.
Only Americans seem to have a problem with this scientific fact. They prefer to believe driving an SUV to the mini-mart is as ecologically safe as driving a Hummer, so what's the difference? Complete ignorance.
The sickening truth (as Bush sees it) is this: The net effect of the Kyoto Protocol creates a global economy that is powered by renewable energy sources; no more fossil fuels. Bush believes the US will lower its emissions levels through the use of advanced technologically. Not very likely given his push for more of the same-old, same-old.
It's nice to think you can get up from your computer, hop in your car and go wherever you want, at a moment's notice. But there is a price to be paid for this. Not to mention the incredulous notion that despite the fact 'Peking Man' discovered fire 500,00 years ago, it's still our main and sometimes only, source of energy.
Internal combustion engines were developed two centuries ago, and nobody seems to be able to build anything better--or more appealing; They create fantastic compressed-air cars, and nobody is interested.
This lack of interest in new technology is what keeps us tied to this planet. Launching a Spaceship requires a vast amount of energy, in the form of heavy fuel that costs almost as much to lift as the cargo it's carrying.
The USS Ronald Reagan has a power source on-board that will last 20 years but your car needs a fill-up about once a week. Doesn't that strike you as odd? Which one of those items has more of a direct impact on your daily life?
Not that we shouldn't have the ship--it's just our cars should be able to do the same thing. If we're as technologically advanced as Bush claims we are, we should have both.
Alas, we don't even come close to his promised technological prowess.
Wind, solar, bio-mass, tidal generators, even solar power stations in orbit or on the Moon with microwave beaming stations, these things represent the future, they will carry us to new worlds. Unfortunately it seems the United States is heading in the opposite direction.
Let's face it, the longer it takes us to develop NEW sources of energy--not just new coal mines or oil fields or natural gas reserves, but actual new forms of energy, the longer it will take us to get into Space.
And the more the international community develops the energy sources we ignore, the further ahead of us they will be.

Lights! Camera! Action!: Foam Still an Issue at NASA

SpaceBlog Alpha is officially open for business! Horray!

Now, if we could just get a million hits between now and Christmas, my dreams will come true...

And to that end, I offer this nugget of info for anyone living under a rock: NASA still has foam problems.
I understand the difficulties of engineering the most complex machine ever built by human hands, but give me a break already. After more than one BILLION dollars spent on a retro-fit to keep the insulating foam securely attached to the fuel tank instead of impacting the fragile orbiter, the foam still cracks, breaks and comes loose in large, almost boulder-size pieces.

I don't know about any of you other US taxpayers, but let's do a little comparison shopping. The Russians are flying tourists to the International Space Station for $20 million a pop. That means the entire shuttle crew, all seven astronauts, could have flown on a Soyuz half a dozen times for the same amount of money.
And the Soyuz hasn't had a fatal accident in more than 30 years!

I realize you can't change horses in mid-stream, but this is getting a little ridiculous. It seems to me NASA engineers may be losing sight of the BIG picture, too busy trying to salvage their egos to realize they are fighting a losing battle.
The shuttle, still grounded though it is, is slated to be retired in about five years anyway. If we continue to shovel money at a potentially unfixable problem, all we'll do is put our next generation of Spacecraft in jeopardy: NASA needs to show the world it still matters.

Because right now all they are doing is showing a penchant for extravagance