Monday, May 31, 2004
“THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW”
Richard B. Cathcart
Geographos
rbcathcart@msn.com
On 29 May, theatre ticket sales spiked globally, due in large part to the spectacular cinematic special effects displayed in Roland Emmerich’s allegedly Geoscience-based film.
In 1998’s movie box-office hits ARMAGEDDON and DEEP IMPACT, huge sea waves caused by ocean impacts of extraterrestrial debris destroyed coast-located urban regions, including New York City. However, in THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, a confection of every Green person’s dreamt epic ecodisaster desires, a monstrous sea wave merely inundates the streets of New York City, even allowing for super-ships to float placidly in the flooded city streets. [See still picture reproduced from the film that accompanied Myles Allen’s review, “Making heavy weather”, Nature 429: 347-348, 27 May 2004.]
How can truly cinematic Geoscience be so inconclusive?
Never mind that comedian Jay Leno’s nightly national TV program recently mocked the movie’s title with a delightful video skit, presented as a “promotional trailer”, by playing on its confusing time sequence—a la “Abie”, the child-character, in THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1950) concocted by Jack Trevor Story (1917-1991).
The dynamic force of a large slamming sea wave on a vertical wall is immense. Roland Emmerich’s Manhattan Island skyscrapers, however, don’t even quiver, let alone collapse or shatter from the sea wave’s watery impact! Geoscientifical rubbish!
The maximum physical wind pressure on a tall building’s solid exterior sheath could be ~3 Newton per square meter of surface. But, a slamming sea wave—as depicted in the film—might exert ~690 Newton per square meter. [Seawater’s density is ~1.025 gram per cubic centimeter while air’s is ~0.0012 gram per cubic centimeter. One Newton is the SI unit of force equal to the force that gives a mass of 1 kilogram an acceleration of 1 meter per second per second in the direction of action of the force.]
So, Roland Emmerich’s computer-skilled special effects employees took considerable artistic license with ordinary geophysical facts. After all, who’d care about a subsequent new Ice Age’s effect on New York City if New York City had already been rendered into crumbled beach debris! In fact, a pulverized New York City would be of interest only to geoscientists, who must struggle to come up with an agreed new name for an abruptly formed new geological deposit! That would be an unfilmable scientific conflict!
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW gets its physical geography, geology and basic physics wrong; its storyline is preposterous. Nevertheless, its commercial public showings as well as its eventual DVD rentals and sales will gross a geophysical-scale quantity of money worldwide! All that cash, collected in one place just might cause….
With Hollywood, it’s never “The End”!
Richard B. Cathcart
Geographos
rbcathcart@msn.com
On 29 May, theatre ticket sales spiked globally, due in large part to the spectacular cinematic special effects displayed in Roland Emmerich’s allegedly Geoscience-based film.
In 1998’s movie box-office hits ARMAGEDDON and DEEP IMPACT, huge sea waves caused by ocean impacts of extraterrestrial debris destroyed coast-located urban regions, including New York City. However, in THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, a confection of every Green person’s dreamt epic ecodisaster desires, a monstrous sea wave merely inundates the streets of New York City, even allowing for super-ships to float placidly in the flooded city streets. [See still picture reproduced from the film that accompanied Myles Allen’s review, “Making heavy weather”, Nature 429: 347-348, 27 May 2004.]
How can truly cinematic Geoscience be so inconclusive?
Never mind that comedian Jay Leno’s nightly national TV program recently mocked the movie’s title with a delightful video skit, presented as a “promotional trailer”, by playing on its confusing time sequence—a la “Abie”, the child-character, in THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1950) concocted by Jack Trevor Story (1917-1991).
The dynamic force of a large slamming sea wave on a vertical wall is immense. Roland Emmerich’s Manhattan Island skyscrapers, however, don’t even quiver, let alone collapse or shatter from the sea wave’s watery impact! Geoscientifical rubbish!
The maximum physical wind pressure on a tall building’s solid exterior sheath could be ~3 Newton per square meter of surface. But, a slamming sea wave—as depicted in the film—might exert ~690 Newton per square meter. [Seawater’s density is ~1.025 gram per cubic centimeter while air’s is ~0.0012 gram per cubic centimeter. One Newton is the SI unit of force equal to the force that gives a mass of 1 kilogram an acceleration of 1 meter per second per second in the direction of action of the force.]
So, Roland Emmerich’s computer-skilled special effects employees took considerable artistic license with ordinary geophysical facts. After all, who’d care about a subsequent new Ice Age’s effect on New York City if New York City had already been rendered into crumbled beach debris! In fact, a pulverized New York City would be of interest only to geoscientists, who must struggle to come up with an agreed new name for an abruptly formed new geological deposit! That would be an unfilmable scientific conflict!
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW gets its physical geography, geology and basic physics wrong; its storyline is preposterous. Nevertheless, its commercial public showings as well as its eventual DVD rentals and sales will gross a geophysical-scale quantity of money worldwide! All that cash, collected in one place just might cause….
With Hollywood, it’s never “The End”!
“THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW” (28 May 2004)
Richard B. Cathcart
On 29 May, theatre ticket sales spiked globally, due in large part to the spectacular cinematic special effects displayed in Roland Emmerich’s allegedly Geoscience-based film.
In 1998’s movie box-office hits ARMAGEDDON and DEEP IMPACT, huge sea waves caused by ocean impacts of extraterrestrial debris destroyed coast-located urban regions, including New York City. However, in THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, a confection of every Green person’s dreamt epic ecodisaster desires, a monstrous sea wave merely inundates the streets of New York City, even allowing for super-ships to float placidly in the flooded city streets. [See still picture reproduced from the film that accompanied Myles Allen’s review, “Making heavy weather”, Nature 429: 347-348, 27 May 2004.]
How can truly cinematic Geoscience be so inconclusive?
Never mind that comedian Jay Leno’s nightly national TV program recently mocked the movie’s title with a delightful video skit, presented as a “promotional trailer”, by playing on its confusing time sequence—a la “Abie”, the child-character, in THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1950) concocted by Jack Trevor Story (1917-1991).
The dynamic force of a large slamming sea wave on a vertical wall is immense. Roland Emmerich’s Manhattan Island skyscrapers, however, don’t even quiver, let alone collapse or shatter from the sea wave’s watery impact! Geoscientifical rubbish!
The maximum physical wind pressure on a tall building’s solid exterior sheath could be ~3 Newton per square meter of surface. But, a slamming sea wave—as depicted in the film—might exert ~690 Newton per square meter. [Seawater’s density is ~1.025 gram per cubic centimeter while air’s is ~0.0012 gram per cubic centimeter. One Newton is the SI unit of force equal to the force that gives a mass of 1 kilogram an acceleration of 1 meter per second per second in the direction of action of the force.]
So, Roland Emmerich’s computer-skilled special effects employees took considerable artistic license with ordinary geophysical facts. After all, who’d care about a subsequent new Ice Age’s effect on New York City if New York City had already been rendered into crumbled beach debris! In fact, a pulverized New York City would be of interest only to geoscientists, who must struggle to come up with an agreed new name for an abruptly formed new geological deposit! That would be an unfilmable scientific conflict!
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW gets its physical geography, geology and basic physics wrong; its storyline is preposterous. Nevertheless, its commercial public showings as well as its eventual DVD rentals and sales will gross a geophysical-scale quantity of money worldwide! All that cash, collected in one place just might cause….
With Hollywood, it’s never “The End”!
Richard B. Cathcart
On 29 May, theatre ticket sales spiked globally, due in large part to the spectacular cinematic special effects displayed in Roland Emmerich’s allegedly Geoscience-based film.
In 1998’s movie box-office hits ARMAGEDDON and DEEP IMPACT, huge sea waves caused by ocean impacts of extraterrestrial debris destroyed coast-located urban regions, including New York City. However, in THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, a confection of every Green person’s dreamt epic ecodisaster desires, a monstrous sea wave merely inundates the streets of New York City, even allowing for super-ships to float placidly in the flooded city streets. [See still picture reproduced from the film that accompanied Myles Allen’s review, “Making heavy weather”, Nature 429: 347-348, 27 May 2004.]
How can truly cinematic Geoscience be so inconclusive?
Never mind that comedian Jay Leno’s nightly national TV program recently mocked the movie’s title with a delightful video skit, presented as a “promotional trailer”, by playing on its confusing time sequence—a la “Abie”, the child-character, in THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1950) concocted by Jack Trevor Story (1917-1991).
The dynamic force of a large slamming sea wave on a vertical wall is immense. Roland Emmerich’s Manhattan Island skyscrapers, however, don’t even quiver, let alone collapse or shatter from the sea wave’s watery impact! Geoscientifical rubbish!
The maximum physical wind pressure on a tall building’s solid exterior sheath could be ~3 Newton per square meter of surface. But, a slamming sea wave—as depicted in the film—might exert ~690 Newton per square meter. [Seawater’s density is ~1.025 gram per cubic centimeter while air’s is ~0.0012 gram per cubic centimeter. One Newton is the SI unit of force equal to the force that gives a mass of 1 kilogram an acceleration of 1 meter per second per second in the direction of action of the force.]
So, Roland Emmerich’s computer-skilled special effects employees took considerable artistic license with ordinary geophysical facts. After all, who’d care about a subsequent new Ice Age’s effect on New York City if New York City had already been rendered into crumbled beach debris! In fact, a pulverized New York City would be of interest only to geoscientists, who must struggle to come up with an agreed new name for an abruptly formed new geological deposit! That would be an unfilmable scientific conflict!
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW gets its physical geography, geology and basic physics wrong; its storyline is preposterous. Nevertheless, its commercial public showings as well as its eventual DVD rentals and sales will gross a geophysical-scale quantity of money worldwide! All that cash, collected in one place just might cause….
With Hollywood, it’s never “The End”!
Monday, April 19, 2004
NUMBY (“Not Under My Back Yard), or a non-CALTECH History of Stevenson’s Unworkable “Earth Probe” Concept Nimbly Re-examined
Richard B. Cathcart
Geographos
rbcathcart@msn.com
Two writers (Jules Verne and Paul Cooper) have fostered my continuing curiosity about the physical state of Earth’s core. Verne, of course, is famous for his imaginative projection of the human will in VOYAGE AU CENTRE DE LA TERRE. Cooper worked out the mathematics of an imaginary conveyance (subway car) to our planet’s center of mass and beyond to some antipodal place on the Earth’s opposing surface. I first read about his work in the 11 February 1966 TIME magazine (at page 30). During March 2003, THE CORE jolted my somewhat dimmed curiosity with a science fiction-style Hollywood-made film. So much so, that I bought CINEFEX 94 (July 2003) that contains a beautifully illustrated plot description penned by Joe Fordham (at pages 15-38) and the film’s dvd format recording.
Possibly many people are still unaware that NBC will televise, on 2 and 3 May 2004, a mini-series entitled “10.5”. Quite literally, it will portray in dramatic action movie style the post-apocalypse events for the USA when half of the State of California falls into the Pacific Ocean! In a 10 April 2004 LOS ANGELES TIMES news item (at page B7) written by Kenneth Reich, “Earthquake Epic Rock Experts—with Mirth”, it is made explicit that the mini-series’ Executive Producer knows that “10.5” will be scientifically uninformative and might even mislead the Americans about actual geological processes.
Today, a globalized human civilization is, more and more, penetrating this planet’s crust for exploration, industrial production, pipeline transportation, storage and manufacture, and vehicular traffic. Yet, almost everywhere, when places are selected for underground installations of any kind the infamous NUMBY (“Not Under My Back Yard”) protestors get a lot of news and entertainment media attention. One of the most immodestly put forth serious proposals for human subterranean scientific activity seems to be that authored by Dr. David Stevenson of CALTECH published in the 15 May 2003 NATURE. It got a fair summarization in John G. Cramer’s “A Mission to the Earth’s Core” in the December 2003 ANALOG: SCIENCE FICTION AND FACT.
Since our planet’s innermost material has fascinated me for decades I can comprehend a bigger picture than was, or so far has been, portrayed by the off-campus media. I am not at all fond of America’s current PR-styled science promotion techniques and so, as a form of relief for accumulating dissatisfaction, I did a series of blog pasquinades to expose some of the obvious Geoscience data inadequacies and theory inaccuracies broadcast worldwide by the informational media subsequent to Dr. David Stevenson’s NATURE paper. I don’t know exactly what material forms the Earth’s core, but I do wish to understand what properly educated, inquisitive minds think might be there! An interesting example is from Russia: Dr. E.M. Drobyshevski and his colleagues think there is an ongoing aggregation of mini-Black Holes at Earth’s center of mass and that this building mass deposit may cause Earth’s expansion in volume. GOTO: arXiv:astro-ph/0111042 posted 27 February 2002. On the other hand, Dr. David Stevenson seems to hold that Earth’s inner core is iron, an unremarkable—that is, standard—interpretation nowadays.
I was surprised that Dr. David Stevenson, during May of 2003, failed to publicly mention his immediate scientific predecessors in invention of the experimental technique for an “Earth Probe”. For example, William M. Adams holds USA Patent 3115194, awarded on 24 December 1963 for a “Nuclear Reactor Apparatus for Earth Penetration”. Adams’ invention, also described in PURE AND APPLIED GEOPHYSICS (61: 113-122, “A Thermal Tool for Direct Investigation of the Interior of the Earth”, 1965), has a benefit Dr. David Stevenson’s one-way reporting “Earth Probe” does not—namely, the Adams invention allows for the retrieval of deep-lying material, just like those bobbing automated devices used by oceanographers!
Even more surprising, at a WWW humor website, http://www.halfbakery.com, on 9 June 2003 was posted “Highway to Hell: Nuclear waste can surf to the Earth’s Core” by one [pseudonym] “bungston”. One subsequent commenter added “Russian Scientists Suggest Burying Spent Nuclear in Earth’s Core” as a link; clicking onto that WWW link, brought up a 7 May 2003 PRAVDA article with that same title. Evidently, geoscientists at Russia’s Lev Davidovich Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics, as long ago as circa 1973, had rather thoroughly thought through the possibility of detonating a small nuclear explosive at a depth of several kilometers to create a rock cavity into which many 20 centimeter spheres fabricated of tungsten and filled with very hot solid nuclear waste could be dumped. These disposal spheres would easily melt the surrounding rock and then fall gravitationally toward Earth’s core. Their “Hot Drop” project proposal is a non-retrievable nuclear waste disposal proposal. The two Moscow inventors, Alexei V. Byalko, author of NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL: GEOPHYSICAL SAFETY (1994), and Igor Khalatnikov are both published in the necessary knowledge fields. Interestingly, their theoretical and experimental work on this so far unimplemented nuclear waste disposal scheme took place at least 30 years before the world-public ever heard of Dr. David Stevenson’s popular media-spread proposal. This must be a function of this “Age of the Internet”. The only notable advancement on the idea that Dr. Stevenson offered is to make the descending sphere a beeping reporter—but even there, he did not offer any clues as to the means to cause such reporting mechanically or electronically.
In closing, I would like to marvel that so much is suspected of happening at our Earth’s core where very extreme physical conditions prevail! Out of pure curiosity, I would like to ask informed persons how 1973’s “Hot Drop” and 2003’s “Earth Probe” might be affected by Earth’s rotation and its whole-body periodic tidal stresses instigated by the Moon and Sun. Is it possible, as Samuel Warren Carey (1911-2002) asserted for many years, that Earth is actually expanding in volume? With Hollywood’s cinematic community about to unleash (on 28 May 2004) the world-public another epic catastrophe film, THE DAY AFTER TOMMOROW, involving an abrupt global climate change (new Ice Age), is it not truly appropriate that 21st Century geoscientists comprehensively review their own scientific heritage literature and, thus, to thereby actively help all living persons blessed with abiding curiosity about the surrounding and enveloping world to understand our physical homeland better?
Richard B. Cathcart
Geographos
rbcathcart@msn.com
Two writers (Jules Verne and Paul Cooper) have fostered my continuing curiosity about the physical state of Earth’s core. Verne, of course, is famous for his imaginative projection of the human will in VOYAGE AU CENTRE DE LA TERRE. Cooper worked out the mathematics of an imaginary conveyance (subway car) to our planet’s center of mass and beyond to some antipodal place on the Earth’s opposing surface. I first read about his work in the 11 February 1966 TIME magazine (at page 30). During March 2003, THE CORE jolted my somewhat dimmed curiosity with a science fiction-style Hollywood-made film. So much so, that I bought CINEFEX 94 (July 2003) that contains a beautifully illustrated plot description penned by Joe Fordham (at pages 15-38) and the film’s dvd format recording.
Possibly many people are still unaware that NBC will televise, on 2 and 3 May 2004, a mini-series entitled “10.5”. Quite literally, it will portray in dramatic action movie style the post-apocalypse events for the USA when half of the State of California falls into the Pacific Ocean! In a 10 April 2004 LOS ANGELES TIMES news item (at page B7) written by Kenneth Reich, “Earthquake Epic Rock Experts—with Mirth”, it is made explicit that the mini-series’ Executive Producer knows that “10.5” will be scientifically uninformative and might even mislead the Americans about actual geological processes.
Today, a globalized human civilization is, more and more, penetrating this planet’s crust for exploration, industrial production, pipeline transportation, storage and manufacture, and vehicular traffic. Yet, almost everywhere, when places are selected for underground installations of any kind the infamous NUMBY (“Not Under My Back Yard”) protestors get a lot of news and entertainment media attention. One of the most immodestly put forth serious proposals for human subterranean scientific activity seems to be that authored by Dr. David Stevenson of CALTECH published in the 15 May 2003 NATURE. It got a fair summarization in John G. Cramer’s “A Mission to the Earth’s Core” in the December 2003 ANALOG: SCIENCE FICTION AND FACT.
Since our planet’s innermost material has fascinated me for decades I can comprehend a bigger picture than was, or so far has been, portrayed by the off-campus media. I am not at all fond of America’s current PR-styled science promotion techniques and so, as a form of relief for accumulating dissatisfaction, I did a series of blog pasquinades to expose some of the obvious Geoscience data inadequacies and theory inaccuracies broadcast worldwide by the informational media subsequent to Dr. David Stevenson’s NATURE paper. I don’t know exactly what material forms the Earth’s core, but I do wish to understand what properly educated, inquisitive minds think might be there! An interesting example is from Russia: Dr. E.M. Drobyshevski and his colleagues think there is an ongoing aggregation of mini-Black Holes at Earth’s center of mass and that this building mass deposit may cause Earth’s expansion in volume. GOTO: arXiv:astro-ph/0111042 posted 27 February 2002. On the other hand, Dr. David Stevenson seems to hold that Earth’s inner core is iron, an unremarkable—that is, standard—interpretation nowadays.
I was surprised that Dr. David Stevenson, during May of 2003, failed to publicly mention his immediate scientific predecessors in invention of the experimental technique for an “Earth Probe”. For example, William M. Adams holds USA Patent 3115194, awarded on 24 December 1963 for a “Nuclear Reactor Apparatus for Earth Penetration”. Adams’ invention, also described in PURE AND APPLIED GEOPHYSICS (61: 113-122, “A Thermal Tool for Direct Investigation of the Interior of the Earth”, 1965), has a benefit Dr. David Stevenson’s one-way reporting “Earth Probe” does not—namely, the Adams invention allows for the retrieval of deep-lying material, just like those bobbing automated devices used by oceanographers!
Even more surprising, at a WWW humor website, http://www.halfbakery.com, on 9 June 2003 was posted “Highway to Hell: Nuclear waste can surf to the Earth’s Core” by one [pseudonym] “bungston”. One subsequent commenter added “Russian Scientists Suggest Burying Spent Nuclear in Earth’s Core” as a link; clicking onto that WWW link, brought up a 7 May 2003 PRAVDA article with that same title. Evidently, geoscientists at Russia’s Lev Davidovich Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics, as long ago as circa 1973, had rather thoroughly thought through the possibility of detonating a small nuclear explosive at a depth of several kilometers to create a rock cavity into which many 20 centimeter spheres fabricated of tungsten and filled with very hot solid nuclear waste could be dumped. These disposal spheres would easily melt the surrounding rock and then fall gravitationally toward Earth’s core. Their “Hot Drop” project proposal is a non-retrievable nuclear waste disposal proposal. The two Moscow inventors, Alexei V. Byalko, author of NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL: GEOPHYSICAL SAFETY (1994), and Igor Khalatnikov are both published in the necessary knowledge fields. Interestingly, their theoretical and experimental work on this so far unimplemented nuclear waste disposal scheme took place at least 30 years before the world-public ever heard of Dr. David Stevenson’s popular media-spread proposal. This must be a function of this “Age of the Internet”. The only notable advancement on the idea that Dr. Stevenson offered is to make the descending sphere a beeping reporter—but even there, he did not offer any clues as to the means to cause such reporting mechanically or electronically.
In closing, I would like to marvel that so much is suspected of happening at our Earth’s core where very extreme physical conditions prevail! Out of pure curiosity, I would like to ask informed persons how 1973’s “Hot Drop” and 2003’s “Earth Probe” might be affected by Earth’s rotation and its whole-body periodic tidal stresses instigated by the Moon and Sun. Is it possible, as Samuel Warren Carey (1911-2002) asserted for many years, that Earth is actually expanding in volume? With Hollywood’s cinematic community about to unleash (on 28 May 2004) the world-public another epic catastrophe film, THE DAY AFTER TOMMOROW, involving an abrupt global climate change (new Ice Age), is it not truly appropriate that 21st Century geoscientists comprehensively review their own scientific heritage literature and, thus, to thereby actively help all living persons blessed with abiding curiosity about the surrounding and enveloping world to understand our physical homeland better?
Friday, August 01, 2003
Roundabout Echo-sounding of America’s Public Purse
Richard B. Cathcart
Geographosrbcathcart@msn.com
Presbyopia plagues pretenders! It was the life-long public-appreciated “affliction” of Ruben Lucius Goldberg (1883-1970), an erstwhile student of mining engineering at the University of California, to undertake to accomplish by complex means what seemingly could be done simply. A recent contender for Goldberg’s mantle is CALTECH’s Dr. David J. Stevenson; “Challenging core ideas”, a July 2003 GEOTIMES (Vol. 48, No. 7, pages 6-7) News Note nudges its readers to this obvious conclusion. It seems Dr. Stevenson’s deepest unfulfilled desire is to “shake people up” and to inform every uninformed American “cracks are something the Earth does naturally”! Dr. Stevenson’s “Mission to Earth’s Core” scheme is a gigantic Scheme to probe the American public’s purse-string perspicacity using a SHEAR lunacy mining/polling technique available because of the existence of gullible popular press publishers.
From all extant published public reports read, Dr. Stevenson appears to be a person as far-over-the-hill geoscientifically as the famous “Mr. X”, who promotes the notion that denies Americans ever tipsy-toed on the Moon encased in their marshmallow-shaped spacesuits. [See: Steven Mirsky, “Sheer Lunacy”, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Vol. 288, No. 2, February 2003, page 92.] Heaven help America’s IRS-hounded taxpayers if the US Patent Office eventually awards Dr. David J. Stevenson a monetary monopoly on his Class 175, “Boring or penetrating the Earth”, postulated device!
The “Fermi Paradox” was first succinctly enunciated—circa May 1950—by Dr. Enrico Fermi (1901-54). Dr. Fermi started and operated our world’s first self-sustaining nuclear generating reactor during December 1942. Fermi’s Paradox is the contradiction between the apparent absence of non-terrestrial Aliens, and the common expectation that humans ought to observe and/or hold in their hands some solid evidence of their existence. Asked Fermi: “Where is everybody?” Nowadays, the American public more and more views geoscientists as if they were extra-terrestrial Aliens seeking the keys to the National Treasury. America’s public asks: “Where are those folks in relation to my Government-confiscated money?” In the July 2003 GEOTIMES article, Dr. David J. Stevenson’s semi-Goldbergian trope is displayed as an obvious, if a bit indistinct or esoteric public policy ploy. He wants generous public FUNding for his profession!
What Dr. Stevenson overlooked, did not examine superficially or in depth, is the true import of any “Mission to Earth’s Core” attempt: it could make our planet uninhabitable for unsuspecting humans or finicky Aliens explorers! Before Dr. Stevenson’s probe reached Earth’s core in (an almost Bible-like) seven days, his reporting capsule’s descent through the crust and mantle mat put into motion natural event-processes that are exceedingly dangerous for the Earth-biosphere, causing an anti-biotic geological catastrophe in this Solar System. Indeed, Dr. David J. Stevenson’s “Mission to Earth’ Core” may be a new form of “suicidal” type solution—additional to Nuclear Armageddon—for Fermi’s posed Paradox. In other words, our globalized Google-Age civilization overdevelops Geoscience (much earlier than, say, Astronomy or Genetics) and subsequently destroys itself by misguided intra-Earth exploration. But, how you ask?
Drs. Hans Keppler, Michael Wiedenbeck and Svyatoslav S. Shcheka in the 24 July 2003 NATURE (Vol. 424, pages 414-416) offer a teasing answer: mass extinctions can be caused by the liberation of carbon formerly lodged in the Earth-mantle. It’s already proved that methane hydrates form a huge reservoir of carbon and the quick, punctuated release of this frozen methane—the geological “Clathrate Gun Hypothesis”—results in global warming. [See: James P. Kennett, Kevin G. Cannariato, Ingrid L. Hendy, Richard J. Behl, METHANE HYDRATES IN QUATERNARY CLIMATE CHANGE: THE CLATHRATE GUN HYPOTHESIS, American Geophysical Union, Washington DC, 2002.] Whether he realizes it or not, Dr. David J., Stevenson has assembled all the necessary basic components for a “Carbon Dioxide Gun” capable, if misused, of murdering life forms of many kinds, including Earth’s fun-loving people! Forced entry by punching through Earth’s crust with a “Mission to Earth’s Core” will not be risk-free and, at the site of its inauguration, may construct a volcano-like “crust-mantle cannon” shooting unwanted (biologically undesirable) gases upwards! For example, when his core-bound reporting probe passes through groundwater it will certainly cause the interaction of freshwater with magma becoming lava. Earth-normal thermal equilibration between freshwater in a ratio of 10^13 gram-moles of 25 degree C freshwater to one cubic kilometer of 1200 degree C magma then evolves 10^12 gram-moles of gaseous hydrogen. A cadre of CALTECH geoscientists reported recently that there’s a “Potential Environmental Impact of a Hydrogen Economy on the Stratosphere” in the 13 June 2003 SCIENCE (Vol. 300, pages 1740-1742). Wouldn’t massive anthropogenic gas escapes instigated by Dr. Stevenson’s “Mission to Earth’s Core” macroproject really, over an abbreviated period of Earthly Geological Time, eventually transmogrify the mantle’s constituents, as well as the planet’s naturally shear-cracked crust?
Perhaps there’s a better means to garner and warrant the American public’s dynamic fiscal support—why not try honest dialogue instead of indirectness and countless cloying public news media crescendos. Oh, if only we could create a genetically engineered clone of an anti-Ruben Lucius Goldberg or anti-David J. Stevenson person—you know, someone who’s a straight-talker and to whom the American public in its infinite wisdom can bestow its trust and general affection. [Personally, I’d borrow a few bits of Dr. J. Marvin Herndon’s DNA—now, there’s a really direct, courageous Enrico Fermi-like communicator on nuclear reactor topics!] The American public asks: “Where are the straight-shooters”!!!!
Richard B. Cathcart
Geographosrbcathcart@msn.com
Presbyopia plagues pretenders! It was the life-long public-appreciated “affliction” of Ruben Lucius Goldberg (1883-1970), an erstwhile student of mining engineering at the University of California, to undertake to accomplish by complex means what seemingly could be done simply. A recent contender for Goldberg’s mantle is CALTECH’s Dr. David J. Stevenson; “Challenging core ideas”, a July 2003 GEOTIMES (Vol. 48, No. 7, pages 6-7) News Note nudges its readers to this obvious conclusion. It seems Dr. Stevenson’s deepest unfulfilled desire is to “shake people up” and to inform every uninformed American “cracks are something the Earth does naturally”! Dr. Stevenson’s “Mission to Earth’s Core” scheme is a gigantic Scheme to probe the American public’s purse-string perspicacity using a SHEAR lunacy mining/polling technique available because of the existence of gullible popular press publishers.
From all extant published public reports read, Dr. Stevenson appears to be a person as far-over-the-hill geoscientifically as the famous “Mr. X”, who promotes the notion that denies Americans ever tipsy-toed on the Moon encased in their marshmallow-shaped spacesuits. [See: Steven Mirsky, “Sheer Lunacy”, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Vol. 288, No. 2, February 2003, page 92.] Heaven help America’s IRS-hounded taxpayers if the US Patent Office eventually awards Dr. David J. Stevenson a monetary monopoly on his Class 175, “Boring or penetrating the Earth”, postulated device!
The “Fermi Paradox” was first succinctly enunciated—circa May 1950—by Dr. Enrico Fermi (1901-54). Dr. Fermi started and operated our world’s first self-sustaining nuclear generating reactor during December 1942. Fermi’s Paradox is the contradiction between the apparent absence of non-terrestrial Aliens, and the common expectation that humans ought to observe and/or hold in their hands some solid evidence of their existence. Asked Fermi: “Where is everybody?” Nowadays, the American public more and more views geoscientists as if they were extra-terrestrial Aliens seeking the keys to the National Treasury. America’s public asks: “Where are those folks in relation to my Government-confiscated money?” In the July 2003 GEOTIMES article, Dr. David J. Stevenson’s semi-Goldbergian trope is displayed as an obvious, if a bit indistinct or esoteric public policy ploy. He wants generous public FUNding for his profession!
What Dr. Stevenson overlooked, did not examine superficially or in depth, is the true import of any “Mission to Earth’s Core” attempt: it could make our planet uninhabitable for unsuspecting humans or finicky Aliens explorers! Before Dr. Stevenson’s probe reached Earth’s core in (an almost Bible-like) seven days, his reporting capsule’s descent through the crust and mantle mat put into motion natural event-processes that are exceedingly dangerous for the Earth-biosphere, causing an anti-biotic geological catastrophe in this Solar System. Indeed, Dr. David J. Stevenson’s “Mission to Earth’ Core” may be a new form of “suicidal” type solution—additional to Nuclear Armageddon—for Fermi’s posed Paradox. In other words, our globalized Google-Age civilization overdevelops Geoscience (much earlier than, say, Astronomy or Genetics) and subsequently destroys itself by misguided intra-Earth exploration. But, how you ask?
Drs. Hans Keppler, Michael Wiedenbeck and Svyatoslav S. Shcheka in the 24 July 2003 NATURE (Vol. 424, pages 414-416) offer a teasing answer: mass extinctions can be caused by the liberation of carbon formerly lodged in the Earth-mantle. It’s already proved that methane hydrates form a huge reservoir of carbon and the quick, punctuated release of this frozen methane—the geological “Clathrate Gun Hypothesis”—results in global warming. [See: James P. Kennett, Kevin G. Cannariato, Ingrid L. Hendy, Richard J. Behl, METHANE HYDRATES IN QUATERNARY CLIMATE CHANGE: THE CLATHRATE GUN HYPOTHESIS, American Geophysical Union, Washington DC, 2002.] Whether he realizes it or not, Dr. David J., Stevenson has assembled all the necessary basic components for a “Carbon Dioxide Gun” capable, if misused, of murdering life forms of many kinds, including Earth’s fun-loving people! Forced entry by punching through Earth’s crust with a “Mission to Earth’s Core” will not be risk-free and, at the site of its inauguration, may construct a volcano-like “crust-mantle cannon” shooting unwanted (biologically undesirable) gases upwards! For example, when his core-bound reporting probe passes through groundwater it will certainly cause the interaction of freshwater with magma becoming lava. Earth-normal thermal equilibration between freshwater in a ratio of 10^13 gram-moles of 25 degree C freshwater to one cubic kilometer of 1200 degree C magma then evolves 10^12 gram-moles of gaseous hydrogen. A cadre of CALTECH geoscientists reported recently that there’s a “Potential Environmental Impact of a Hydrogen Economy on the Stratosphere” in the 13 June 2003 SCIENCE (Vol. 300, pages 1740-1742). Wouldn’t massive anthropogenic gas escapes instigated by Dr. Stevenson’s “Mission to Earth’s Core” macroproject really, over an abbreviated period of Earthly Geological Time, eventually transmogrify the mantle’s constituents, as well as the planet’s naturally shear-cracked crust?
Perhaps there’s a better means to garner and warrant the American public’s dynamic fiscal support—why not try honest dialogue instead of indirectness and countless cloying public news media crescendos. Oh, if only we could create a genetically engineered clone of an anti-Ruben Lucius Goldberg or anti-David J. Stevenson person—you know, someone who’s a straight-talker and to whom the American public in its infinite wisdom can bestow its trust and general affection. [Personally, I’d borrow a few bits of Dr. J. Marvin Herndon’s DNA—now, there’s a really direct, courageous Enrico Fermi-like communicator on nuclear reactor topics!] The American public asks: “Where are the straight-shooters”!!!!
Sunday, July 27, 2003
Potential Future Initiation of the “Permanent Global Summertime”: A Geological Event-Process Inadvertently Designed by a “Down-to-Earth” CALTECH Professor?
By
Richard B. Cathcart
GEOGRAPHOSrbcathcart@msn.com
More slavish journalists have dispersed the “idea” propounded by Dr. David J. Stevenson of CALTECH for a “Mission to Earth’s Core” macroproject in the popular print medium. [See: Sarah Simpson, “Deep Thoughts: How to journey to the center of the Earth—maybe”, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Vol. 289, No. 2, pages 24-25, August 2003 and S.B. “Melt down”, ASTRONOMY NOW Vol. 18, No. 8, page 14, July 2003.] Therefore, it is time to offer additional observations, minus the overtone of Project SATIRE.
Earth became a planet within a period of perhaps 30 million years after our Solar System’s formation. It is still collecting materials, growing more massive as we live and breathe today! Earth’s air has been splashed into Outer Space by gigantic asteroid and comet impacts, yet we still have gases to inhale.
Some gases—especially water vapor (97%) and carbon dioxide—are added to the Earth-atmosphere by visible volcanoes. Such additions, naturally, play a profound role in the thermodynamics of our planet’s air. Large volcanic eruptions, it has now been reported, inject carbon dioxide gas that is mainly derived from molten veins and subterranean pockets of carbonate. This revolutionary discovery, by Dr. Hans Keppler and several colleagues, can be examined in “Carbon solubility in olivine and the mode of carbon storage in the Earth’s mantle”, NATURE, Vol. 424, pages 414-416, 24 July 2003). Dr. Keppler was a Research Fellow in Geology at CALTECH from 1988 until 1990 and, since April 2000, is a Professor of Mineralogy at the University of Tubingen in Germany.
The most startling conclusion reached by Dr. Keppler’s Germany-based research team is that it is nowadays logical to speculate that a large melting event-process in a carbonate-rich region of the deeper mantle could very rapidly allow the migration of a large quantity of carbon dioxide from this presently crust-isolated reservoir into the Earth-atmosphere. Already, geo-scientific experts accept that some documented ancient global extinctions of various life forms were caused, evidently, by sudden releases from underground of carbon dioxide gas co-extant with widespread volcanic activity such as that in India and Iceland. A really notable large outburst of carbon dioxide gas from this deep reservoir could cause a drastic heating event-process affecting the Earth-atmosphere and the biosphere it shelters.
Dr. David J. Stevenson’s “Mission to Earth’s Core”, announced in May 2003, could trigger just such a massive (artificial) exhalation of carbon dioxide gas, which is definitely not a good thing for humanity’s civilization! By technologically penetrating the crust, perhaps weakening its local integrity, a descending Stevensonean Probe could artificially initiate an eventually massive volcanic eruption! Yet, Dr. David J. Stevenson never foresaw any such possibility in his plan. It would seem proper that he should address this dangerous facet sometime in the near future! Surely, no sane person wants the Earth-atmosphere to become life’s shroud instead of its shelter!
By
Richard B. Cathcart
GEOGRAPHOSrbcathcart@msn.com
More slavish journalists have dispersed the “idea” propounded by Dr. David J. Stevenson of CALTECH for a “Mission to Earth’s Core” macroproject in the popular print medium. [See: Sarah Simpson, “Deep Thoughts: How to journey to the center of the Earth—maybe”, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Vol. 289, No. 2, pages 24-25, August 2003 and S.B. “Melt down”, ASTRONOMY NOW Vol. 18, No. 8, page 14, July 2003.] Therefore, it is time to offer additional observations, minus the overtone of Project SATIRE.
Earth became a planet within a period of perhaps 30 million years after our Solar System’s formation. It is still collecting materials, growing more massive as we live and breathe today! Earth’s air has been splashed into Outer Space by gigantic asteroid and comet impacts, yet we still have gases to inhale.
Some gases—especially water vapor (97%) and carbon dioxide—are added to the Earth-atmosphere by visible volcanoes. Such additions, naturally, play a profound role in the thermodynamics of our planet’s air. Large volcanic eruptions, it has now been reported, inject carbon dioxide gas that is mainly derived from molten veins and subterranean pockets of carbonate. This revolutionary discovery, by Dr. Hans Keppler and several colleagues, can be examined in “Carbon solubility in olivine and the mode of carbon storage in the Earth’s mantle”, NATURE, Vol. 424, pages 414-416, 24 July 2003). Dr. Keppler was a Research Fellow in Geology at CALTECH from 1988 until 1990 and, since April 2000, is a Professor of Mineralogy at the University of Tubingen in Germany.
The most startling conclusion reached by Dr. Keppler’s Germany-based research team is that it is nowadays logical to speculate that a large melting event-process in a carbonate-rich region of the deeper mantle could very rapidly allow the migration of a large quantity of carbon dioxide from this presently crust-isolated reservoir into the Earth-atmosphere. Already, geo-scientific experts accept that some documented ancient global extinctions of various life forms were caused, evidently, by sudden releases from underground of carbon dioxide gas co-extant with widespread volcanic activity such as that in India and Iceland. A really notable large outburst of carbon dioxide gas from this deep reservoir could cause a drastic heating event-process affecting the Earth-atmosphere and the biosphere it shelters.
Dr. David J. Stevenson’s “Mission to Earth’s Core”, announced in May 2003, could trigger just such a massive (artificial) exhalation of carbon dioxide gas, which is definitely not a good thing for humanity’s civilization! By technologically penetrating the crust, perhaps weakening its local integrity, a descending Stevensonean Probe could artificially initiate an eventually massive volcanic eruption! Yet, Dr. David J. Stevenson never foresaw any such possibility in his plan. It would seem proper that he should address this dangerous facet sometime in the near future! Surely, no sane person wants the Earth-atmosphere to become life’s shroud instead of its shelter!
Sunday, July 20, 2003
A SF/Nuclear Geochemistry Parallelism?
By
Richard B. Cathcart
GEOGRAPHOS
rbcathcart@msn.com
DISCOVER magazine’s August 2003 issue (at page 16) offered “A Strange Brew in Middle of Earth” by Kathy A. Svitil. There is an ongoing debate in Earth Systems Science, currently in temporary dormancy, about the composition of our Earth’s hot core. Specifically, there is argument not only about how Earth formed billions of years ago but also concerning what kinds of materials collected in its center.
Svitil mentioned briefly a CALTECH professor’s (Dr. David J. Stevenson) 15 May 2003-announced plan in NATURE encouraging a future “launch” of a reporting, penetrative probe to the Earth-core in order to certify that it does consist only of iron. Recently, I had a bit fun redefining this impractical scientific proposal from a macro-engineering viewpoint via Project SATIRE, which can be accessed on the WWW: GOTO: http://www.geographos.blogspot.com/ .
A renowned American nuclear geochemist, Dr. J. Marvin Herndon, since about 1992, has continued to undercut the Earth-has-only-an-iron-core adherents with his innovative articles in major international peer-reviewed science periodicals, of ever more elaborate new forms of proof that our Earth’s central most core is made mostly of uranium, with iron relegated to the outer, fluid core! GOTO: http://www.NuclearPlanet.com . A March 2003 American SF film, THE CORE, delved into this Earth Systems Science subject most graphically.
There seems to be a parallelism of Science Fiction—in particular, the Superman genre—and Earth Systems Science! The Superman character made its debut in ACTION COMICS #1 in June of 1938. Reared on Earth by loving foster parents, a refugee from the planet Krypton, Superman does good works for all humankind. Interestingly, the world of Krypton is disrupted by a chemical imbalance within its uranium core on 39 Ogtol, 10,000!
Furthermore, most SF fans will easily recall that a 1956 American-made movie, FORBIDDEN PLANET, featured exciting visuals of that planet’s artificial core, which was comprised of many self-maintained nuclear reactors emplaced by the extinct Krell people. I have penned an essay that redefines the cinema’s storyline from its ordinary rendition. GOTO: “Geological Time Termination in a SciFi Biosphere: An Alternative View of THE FORBIDDEN PLANET”, which was posted during October 2001 at astronomer Dr. David Darling’s “Astrobiology Central” website: http://www.angelfire.com/on2/daviddarling/ForbPlan_Cathcart.htm .
By
Richard B. Cathcart
GEOGRAPHOS
rbcathcart@msn.com
DISCOVER magazine’s August 2003 issue (at page 16) offered “A Strange Brew in Middle of Earth” by Kathy A. Svitil. There is an ongoing debate in Earth Systems Science, currently in temporary dormancy, about the composition of our Earth’s hot core. Specifically, there is argument not only about how Earth formed billions of years ago but also concerning what kinds of materials collected in its center.
Svitil mentioned briefly a CALTECH professor’s (Dr. David J. Stevenson) 15 May 2003-announced plan in NATURE encouraging a future “launch” of a reporting, penetrative probe to the Earth-core in order to certify that it does consist only of iron. Recently, I had a bit fun redefining this impractical scientific proposal from a macro-engineering viewpoint via Project SATIRE, which can be accessed on the WWW: GOTO: http://www.geographos.blogspot.com/ .
A renowned American nuclear geochemist, Dr. J. Marvin Herndon, since about 1992, has continued to undercut the Earth-has-only-an-iron-core adherents with his innovative articles in major international peer-reviewed science periodicals, of ever more elaborate new forms of proof that our Earth’s central most core is made mostly of uranium, with iron relegated to the outer, fluid core! GOTO: http://www.NuclearPlanet.com . A March 2003 American SF film, THE CORE, delved into this Earth Systems Science subject most graphically.
There seems to be a parallelism of Science Fiction—in particular, the Superman genre—and Earth Systems Science! The Superman character made its debut in ACTION COMICS #1 in June of 1938. Reared on Earth by loving foster parents, a refugee from the planet Krypton, Superman does good works for all humankind. Interestingly, the world of Krypton is disrupted by a chemical imbalance within its uranium core on 39 Ogtol, 10,000!
Furthermore, most SF fans will easily recall that a 1956 American-made movie, FORBIDDEN PLANET, featured exciting visuals of that planet’s artificial core, which was comprised of many self-maintained nuclear reactors emplaced by the extinct Krell people. I have penned an essay that redefines the cinema’s storyline from its ordinary rendition. GOTO: “Geological Time Termination in a SciFi Biosphere: An Alternative View of THE FORBIDDEN PLANET”, which was posted during October 2001 at astronomer Dr. David Darling’s “Astrobiology Central” website: http://www.angelfire.com/on2/daviddarling/ForbPlan_Cathcart.htm .
Thursday, July 10, 2003
Deep-Biosphere’s Denizens Ignore Shutdown of Project SATIRE?
Richard B. Cathcart
Geographos
rbcathcart@msn.com
No recognizable communication of any kind from Intra-Planetary Life Forms—those organisms living deep inside “our” Earth—has yet voiced a cogent scientific objection to Dr. David J. Stevenson’s announced niche invasion plan for a “Mission to Earth’s Core” macroproject.
Finding no out-spoken allies in my somewhat lonely WWW-based effort to increase the ecological sophistication of the extant “Mission to Earth’s Core” game plan, I have concluded it is now the appropriate time to shutdown Project SATIRE (Scientific and Technical Information Reviewed and Exposed), which was tailored on http://www.satirewire.com , a now defunct, yet still accessible, WWW site offering tasteful renderings on real and non-real news items. But, before closing SATIRE, a few general comments on the topic seem to be necessary, even obligatory.
MONITORING THE EARTH: PHYSICAL GEOLOGY IN ACTION (2002), by Claudio Vita-Finzi is the first book-length review of all the recent advances in satellite data acquisition, supercomputing and mass-spectrometry techniques that are “disrobing” Earth to the unsympathetic gaze of Earthlings. Scientific investigators nowadays behave like mechanics removing the cover-plates from the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair “Atomium”! To this activity, Dr. Stevenson has proposed a version of the American medical industry’s video pill, a television camera approximately the size of a vitamin pill that, when ingested by a patient, transmits images from a person’s stomach and intestinal tract. Greens have petitioned America’s law courts to restrain, sometime prevent, the US Navy from testing its most powerful sonar gear in the open ocean because, they allege, it hurts the eardrums of whales etc. Therefore, it’s very improbable that threadbare Green vegan litigants and commission-addicted lawyer$ would idly stand by whilst Dr. Stevenson’s gadgetry invades Earth’s molten interior after, first, passing through a zone that might be teeming with undocumented life forms!
SATIRE, in a final prediction, states for the historical record that Dr. David J. Stevenson’s “Mission to Earth’s Core” macroproject, if undertaken, will be as disappointing to the world-public as humankind’s so-called Space Age. [See, for instance: Sean Topham’s WHERE’S MY SPACE AGE? THE RISE AND FALL OF FUTURISTIC DESIGN (2003).] And, furthermore, it wont even equal a non-profit French group’s KEO Project [GOTO: http://www.space.com/searchforlifeseti/seti_vakoch_keo_030710.html ] to project, then retrieve after Earth impact or splashdown 50,000 years hence, a deep-space probe which had been autographed by people from every country before it was sent into Outer Space! If Dr. Stevenson publicly offers more refinements on his “Mission to Earth’s Core”, SATIRE will feel obliged to offer a few worthwhile corrections should mistakes be found.
Overall, SATIRE thinks/believes that “Mission to Earth’s Core” is another modern-day absurdity masquerading as Macro-engineering—see, especially, SATIRE’s remarks of 10 June 2003 below—and is dismayed that a massive missive macroproject has been planned by a mere geoscientist, not a macro-engineer! “Mission to Earth’s Core” is remarkably too remindful of the wildly devised macroprojects offered by “halfbakery, call ambulance, rebuild kitchen” ( http://www.halfbakery.com ).
Besides, SATIRE’s impassioned macro-engineering objections to “Mission to Earth’s Core” are, perhaps sooner rather than later, as likely to become accessed by the WWW world-public as the recently published CALTECH discovery that a proposed Hydrogen Economy—nowadays still advertised as a near-certain “cure” for the atmospheric build-up of carbon dioxide gases allegedly causing global warming—poses a palpable threat to all Earth life in terms of pollution impacts. See: T.K. Tromp, R-L Shia, M. Allen, J.M. Eiler and Y.L. Yung, “Potential Environmental Impact of a Hydrogen Economy on the Stratosphere”, SCIENCE 300: 1740-1742 (13 June 2003). Heck, it seems even if we harvested hydrogen gas from Saturn via a Saturn Hydrogen Acquisition Mission (SHAM), as anonymously proposed by “timmyd” on 12 June 2003 at http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Hydrogen_20Source that just wouldn’t be a good macroproject either! It just seems to be one of those not-so-rare instances of “Damned if you do it, damned if you don’t” doesn’t?
SATIRE anxiously awaits further developments in this saga of BIG SCIENCE! Meantime, SATIRE’s body craves another vitamin pill, which will, of course, be thoroughly examined—maybe pulverized—before being swallowed!
Richard B. Cathcart
Geographos
rbcathcart@msn.com
No recognizable communication of any kind from Intra-Planetary Life Forms—those organisms living deep inside “our” Earth—has yet voiced a cogent scientific objection to Dr. David J. Stevenson’s announced niche invasion plan for a “Mission to Earth’s Core” macroproject.
Finding no out-spoken allies in my somewhat lonely WWW-based effort to increase the ecological sophistication of the extant “Mission to Earth’s Core” game plan, I have concluded it is now the appropriate time to shutdown Project SATIRE (Scientific and Technical Information Reviewed and Exposed), which was tailored on http://www.satirewire.com , a now defunct, yet still accessible, WWW site offering tasteful renderings on real and non-real news items. But, before closing SATIRE, a few general comments on the topic seem to be necessary, even obligatory.
MONITORING THE EARTH: PHYSICAL GEOLOGY IN ACTION (2002), by Claudio Vita-Finzi is the first book-length review of all the recent advances in satellite data acquisition, supercomputing and mass-spectrometry techniques that are “disrobing” Earth to the unsympathetic gaze of Earthlings. Scientific investigators nowadays behave like mechanics removing the cover-plates from the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair “Atomium”! To this activity, Dr. Stevenson has proposed a version of the American medical industry’s video pill, a television camera approximately the size of a vitamin pill that, when ingested by a patient, transmits images from a person’s stomach and intestinal tract. Greens have petitioned America’s law courts to restrain, sometime prevent, the US Navy from testing its most powerful sonar gear in the open ocean because, they allege, it hurts the eardrums of whales etc. Therefore, it’s very improbable that threadbare Green vegan litigants and commission-addicted lawyer$ would idly stand by whilst Dr. Stevenson’s gadgetry invades Earth’s molten interior after, first, passing through a zone that might be teeming with undocumented life forms!
SATIRE, in a final prediction, states for the historical record that Dr. David J. Stevenson’s “Mission to Earth’s Core” macroproject, if undertaken, will be as disappointing to the world-public as humankind’s so-called Space Age. [See, for instance: Sean Topham’s WHERE’S MY SPACE AGE? THE RISE AND FALL OF FUTURISTIC DESIGN (2003).] And, furthermore, it wont even equal a non-profit French group’s KEO Project [GOTO: http://www.space.com/searchforlifeseti/seti_vakoch_keo_030710.html ] to project, then retrieve after Earth impact or splashdown 50,000 years hence, a deep-space probe which had been autographed by people from every country before it was sent into Outer Space! If Dr. Stevenson publicly offers more refinements on his “Mission to Earth’s Core”, SATIRE will feel obliged to offer a few worthwhile corrections should mistakes be found.
Overall, SATIRE thinks/believes that “Mission to Earth’s Core” is another modern-day absurdity masquerading as Macro-engineering—see, especially, SATIRE’s remarks of 10 June 2003 below—and is dismayed that a massive missive macroproject has been planned by a mere geoscientist, not a macro-engineer! “Mission to Earth’s Core” is remarkably too remindful of the wildly devised macroprojects offered by “halfbakery, call ambulance, rebuild kitchen” ( http://www.halfbakery.com ).
Besides, SATIRE’s impassioned macro-engineering objections to “Mission to Earth’s Core” are, perhaps sooner rather than later, as likely to become accessed by the WWW world-public as the recently published CALTECH discovery that a proposed Hydrogen Economy—nowadays still advertised as a near-certain “cure” for the atmospheric build-up of carbon dioxide gases allegedly causing global warming—poses a palpable threat to all Earth life in terms of pollution impacts. See: T.K. Tromp, R-L Shia, M. Allen, J.M. Eiler and Y.L. Yung, “Potential Environmental Impact of a Hydrogen Economy on the Stratosphere”, SCIENCE 300: 1740-1742 (13 June 2003). Heck, it seems even if we harvested hydrogen gas from Saturn via a Saturn Hydrogen Acquisition Mission (SHAM), as anonymously proposed by “timmyd” on 12 June 2003 at http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Hydrogen_20Source that just wouldn’t be a good macroproject either! It just seems to be one of those not-so-rare instances of “Damned if you do it, damned if you don’t” doesn’t?
SATIRE anxiously awaits further developments in this saga of BIG SCIENCE! Meantime, SATIRE’s body craves another vitamin pill, which will, of course, be thoroughly examined—maybe pulverized—before being swallowed!
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Feigned Journalistic Fury versus Fiery Geoscience Feint?
Richard B. Cathcart
Geographosrbcathcart@msn.com
Flopping inside my mailbox, almost invisible amongst the US Postal Service-delivered adverts and throwaways, was the glossy-covered 26 May 2003 issue of U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT [Vol. 134, No. 8]. Flipping through it, finally reaching its page 54, I spied “A hell of an idea: A leading scientist has a half-serious scheme for sending a probe all the way to Earth’s fiery core”. Situated next to an advertisement for the MERCK MANUAL OF MEDICAL INFORMATION—SECOND HOME EDITION, is the article penned by Nell Boyce that is cleverly illustrated with a drawn bald human male, enrobed in a dinghy white laboratory coat, intently peering into a “holed” Earth and, incidentally getting himself facially irradiated by an intensely radioactive Earth-core! Madness!
Journalism just can’t get more bizarre than this! Dr. David J. Stevenson, originator of the widely noticed geoscience plan reported in this weekly national news magazine by Nell Boyce, seems to be a person that is not to be taken seriously by some American journalists! Is it possible Dr. Stevenson may come, sometime during the 21st Century, to achieve the notorious stature that Mr. John Cleves Symmes (1780-1829), promoter of the “Hollow-Earth Theory” held during the 19th Century? Symmes died 29 May 1829. By lobbying members of the U.S. Congress—specifically Richard M. Johnson—petitions were considered by that august legislative body on 7 March 1822 and, again, during December 1823 to encourage a Federal order for exploratory expeditions to discover the inside of our Earth! Evidently, there was some enthusiasm for Mr. Symmes’ fascination with Earth’s interior for it was his ideas that played a major role in getting the Federal government’s financial underwriting for Charles Wilkes’ 1838-40 U.S. Exploring Expedition to Antarctica, thereby determining it was a continent. The 5 March 2001 CALTECH press-release [ http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12112.html ] issued by Mr. Mark Wheeler, “Stevenson Receives Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching”, clearly stated that Dr. Stevenson “doesn’t have a lab.” But, maybe Nell Boyce did not see that announcement.
Many readers are aware of the periodical MOTHER EARTH NEWS that purveys a Green viewpoint on mankind’s current and past activities in the Earth-biosphere. Will it soon become possible, after expenditure of USA$10 billions of Federal science research monies, to actually “contact” Mother Earth herself?
Soon to be ex-President William J. Clinton, during January 2000, spoke at CALTECH. Standing before a stage backdrop that portrayed Earth’s Western Hemisphere in big gold dots, President Clinton gushed that he endorsed a “major new Nanotechnological initiative worth $500 million”. (The BIG gold dots were meant to symbolize TINY gold atoms.) CALTECH is proud of its connection with the late Dr. Richard Phillips Feynman, perhaps the earliest American academic advocate of Nanotechnology’s development. Specifically, Dr. Feynman (1918-88) proved all the words in all of our world’s libraries could be stored permanently on a material cube 1/200th of an inch on each side. [R&D in Nanotechnology is a cause for Green anti-pollutionary alarm, if the May 2003 cover story in THE ECOLOGIST (Vol. 33, No. 4, pages 28-44) pans out in terms of future unfolding ecological disasters.] The import of Dr. R.P. Feynman’s calculated scientific fact is that Dr. David J. Stevenson’s beeping capsule—intended for rapid descent to and, perhaps, even someway into our Earth’s core—might also be utilized to carry thoughtful messages penned by Average Federal Tax-paying Americans directly to Mother Earth’s “Heart”!!!!! Literally, it would amount to messages placed inside a sinking, not floating, bottle that is conveyed gravitationally to the planet’s center of mass.
Unquestionably, humans today impress a gigantic ecological footprint on Mother Earth’s “Face”—that is, this planet’s enshrouding crust. Now, Dr. David J. Stevenson desires our species to also, quite intentionally, pollute Earth’s mantle and its outer and inner core with manufactured materials not naturally present—at least during our brief segment of Geological Time—in those interior global zones! To appropriately apologize for humankind’s post-Industrial Revolution making of ugly superficial messes, many will concur with Dr. Stevenson that we ought to—in effect—send Mother Earth a heartfelt message of our species’ happy surface presence. And, there is the cheering prospect for defraying the “Mission to Earth’s Core” macroproject’s estimated USA$10 billions cost by selling autograph space on Dr. Feynman’s Cube to be inserted within Dr. Stevenson’s lively, reporting planet pill(s).
Luckily for Californians, there is virtually no chance that iron ore will be ripped from our Golden State’s surface since our heroic Gov. Gray Davis, on 7 April 2003, signed into law Senate Bill 22 which requires that open-pit mines on Native American sacred lands be filled in after they close and the landscape then restored to its natural contours. On 10 April 2003, Gov. Davis’ obedient appointees to the State Mining and Geology Board adopted regulations extending the SB 22 reclamation requirements to ALL new open-pit metallic ore mines in the State of California. Thus, no new iron ore excavations hereabouts since the cost of mining is, effectively, doubled!! (It is widely known that the State of California is now very deeply in debt, remarkably without any spare funds for any scientific research.) This means, obviously, that there is virtually no possibility for an ironworks’ construction on or near the lovely, tree-shaded CALTECH campus in bucolic Pasadena; nearby commercial and residential property values are unlikely to precipitously plummet. So, it properly seems, isolated and mostly rural New Zealand really is the most perfect macroproject Test Site for Dr. David J. Stevenson’s “modest proposal” to touch our Earth’s core with mankind’s Neo-Iron Space Age technology.
Richard B. Cathcart
Geographosrbcathcart@msn.com
Flopping inside my mailbox, almost invisible amongst the US Postal Service-delivered adverts and throwaways, was the glossy-covered 26 May 2003 issue of U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT [Vol. 134, No. 8]. Flipping through it, finally reaching its page 54, I spied “A hell of an idea: A leading scientist has a half-serious scheme for sending a probe all the way to Earth’s fiery core”. Situated next to an advertisement for the MERCK MANUAL OF MEDICAL INFORMATION—SECOND HOME EDITION, is the article penned by Nell Boyce that is cleverly illustrated with a drawn bald human male, enrobed in a dinghy white laboratory coat, intently peering into a “holed” Earth and, incidentally getting himself facially irradiated by an intensely radioactive Earth-core! Madness!
Journalism just can’t get more bizarre than this! Dr. David J. Stevenson, originator of the widely noticed geoscience plan reported in this weekly national news magazine by Nell Boyce, seems to be a person that is not to be taken seriously by some American journalists! Is it possible Dr. Stevenson may come, sometime during the 21st Century, to achieve the notorious stature that Mr. John Cleves Symmes (1780-1829), promoter of the “Hollow-Earth Theory” held during the 19th Century? Symmes died 29 May 1829. By lobbying members of the U.S. Congress—specifically Richard M. Johnson—petitions were considered by that august legislative body on 7 March 1822 and, again, during December 1823 to encourage a Federal order for exploratory expeditions to discover the inside of our Earth! Evidently, there was some enthusiasm for Mr. Symmes’ fascination with Earth’s interior for it was his ideas that played a major role in getting the Federal government’s financial underwriting for Charles Wilkes’ 1838-40 U.S. Exploring Expedition to Antarctica, thereby determining it was a continent. The 5 March 2001 CALTECH press-release [ http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12112.html ] issued by Mr. Mark Wheeler, “Stevenson Receives Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching”, clearly stated that Dr. Stevenson “doesn’t have a lab.” But, maybe Nell Boyce did not see that announcement.
Many readers are aware of the periodical MOTHER EARTH NEWS that purveys a Green viewpoint on mankind’s current and past activities in the Earth-biosphere. Will it soon become possible, after expenditure of USA$10 billions of Federal science research monies, to actually “contact” Mother Earth herself?
Soon to be ex-President William J. Clinton, during January 2000, spoke at CALTECH. Standing before a stage backdrop that portrayed Earth’s Western Hemisphere in big gold dots, President Clinton gushed that he endorsed a “major new Nanotechnological initiative worth $500 million”. (The BIG gold dots were meant to symbolize TINY gold atoms.) CALTECH is proud of its connection with the late Dr. Richard Phillips Feynman, perhaps the earliest American academic advocate of Nanotechnology’s development. Specifically, Dr. Feynman (1918-88) proved all the words in all of our world’s libraries could be stored permanently on a material cube 1/200th of an inch on each side. [R&D in Nanotechnology is a cause for Green anti-pollutionary alarm, if the May 2003 cover story in THE ECOLOGIST (Vol. 33, No. 4, pages 28-44) pans out in terms of future unfolding ecological disasters.] The import of Dr. R.P. Feynman’s calculated scientific fact is that Dr. David J. Stevenson’s beeping capsule—intended for rapid descent to and, perhaps, even someway into our Earth’s core—might also be utilized to carry thoughtful messages penned by Average Federal Tax-paying Americans directly to Mother Earth’s “Heart”!!!!! Literally, it would amount to messages placed inside a sinking, not floating, bottle that is conveyed gravitationally to the planet’s center of mass.
Unquestionably, humans today impress a gigantic ecological footprint on Mother Earth’s “Face”—that is, this planet’s enshrouding crust. Now, Dr. David J. Stevenson desires our species to also, quite intentionally, pollute Earth’s mantle and its outer and inner core with manufactured materials not naturally present—at least during our brief segment of Geological Time—in those interior global zones! To appropriately apologize for humankind’s post-Industrial Revolution making of ugly superficial messes, many will concur with Dr. Stevenson that we ought to—in effect—send Mother Earth a heartfelt message of our species’ happy surface presence. And, there is the cheering prospect for defraying the “Mission to Earth’s Core” macroproject’s estimated USA$10 billions cost by selling autograph space on Dr. Feynman’s Cube to be inserted within Dr. Stevenson’s lively, reporting planet pill(s).
Luckily for Californians, there is virtually no chance that iron ore will be ripped from our Golden State’s surface since our heroic Gov. Gray Davis, on 7 April 2003, signed into law Senate Bill 22 which requires that open-pit mines on Native American sacred lands be filled in after they close and the landscape then restored to its natural contours. On 10 April 2003, Gov. Davis’ obedient appointees to the State Mining and Geology Board adopted regulations extending the SB 22 reclamation requirements to ALL new open-pit metallic ore mines in the State of California. Thus, no new iron ore excavations hereabouts since the cost of mining is, effectively, doubled!! (It is widely known that the State of California is now very deeply in debt, remarkably without any spare funds for any scientific research.) This means, obviously, that there is virtually no possibility for an ironworks’ construction on or near the lovely, tree-shaded CALTECH campus in bucolic Pasadena; nearby commercial and residential property values are unlikely to precipitously plummet. So, it properly seems, isolated and mostly rural New Zealand really is the most perfect macroproject Test Site for Dr. David J. Stevenson’s “modest proposal” to touch our Earth’s core with mankind’s Neo-Iron Space Age technology.
