The human factor in research

8/6/26:

I'll take this opportunity to disclose that I've increased my position in Focus Fusion. This took place more than a month ago, but I've kept it quiet. Not sure about what to say about it. Let's say it's a hope and a prayer that this ship comes in soon.

4/16/26:

Today is an oldies kind of day. I'm reviewing posts for those which gathered the most attention. This one and the one previously posted this morning caught my eye. So I wrote an update for each.

What could be more human than finding something and then forgetting it? Then finding it again? The same is true on the historic scale as it is on the personal. I'm thinking of the Roman era, which was more advanced than some may have thought. Roman life may have been like living in nineteenth century, but it was a very long time ago--in ancient times. When Roman civilization collapsed in the Western half of Europe, there was an era called the Dark Ages. Life became primitive for centuries. It took a long time to recover.

There are lessons in history if you bother to notice. It is a lot like studying this blog and rediscovering posts like these. A question comes to mind: what does the future hold? As of now, there is no solution to the energy problem. There seems to be a war in Iran that is closely related to the problem of energy. If the energy problem were solved, would that help bring about world peace? It's a thought.

5/20/11:

Not too long ago, I did a number of posts on the subject of Rossi Focardi fusion research.  Then, yesterday, I came across the energy from Thorium proposition.  Both are attempting to do the same thing: generate energy from the atom.  The difference between the two is that one is fusion while the other is fission.  The similarities are that both had a lot of promise at one point, but seemed to fall by the wayside and recently rediscovered.

There has been a great deal of fear about nuclear energy.  Not to mention the worry about the wastes.  This did not concern me as much as others may have been because of what I read in Dixy Lee Ray's book  Trashing the Planet.  I suspect that a lot of the fear has to do with a lack of understanding which is exacerbated by the way that mishaps get reported in the news.  Hence, the Three Mile Island incident effectively shuts down the nuclear industry here.  A few years later, Chernobyl reinforced that fear.  Now Fukishima just adds to the climate of fear of things nuclear- these things just don't seem safe.  Now, Germany abandons nuclear power.  All of this is an overreaction.  Sadly, it may be unavoidable.  People will fear something they don't understand.   What to do?

The star crossed history of fission has been the impetus for fusion research.  But fusion is much harder.  After all these decades, we still don't have a fusion reactor which is net energy.  But people are looking and looking hard.  As for me, I've been looking closely at the energy issue for several years now.  I came across Dr. Bussard's Polywell concept.  It was one of the first things I wrote about on this blog.  Lately, two other concepts have caught my attention- Focus Fusion and Rossi Focardi's "cold fusion".   My own experience studying these ideas has brought something else to my attention- the human factor.  People fall in love with their ideas.  It is entirely human, but it is also hazardous in its own way.  It may blind us to other paths that we may take.  That's because to fall in love means the exclusion of all other choices.

To fear and to love are all too human.  But it is also possible to learn and keep an open mind.  Unfortunately, when emotions take over, the mind tends to close down.  Reason and logic go overboard and big mistakes can be made.  The reaction to this may draw the reaction- who do you think you are, Spock?  Yeah, maybe you weren't thinking that at all, and the Spock reference turns you off.  I've described times when I got turned off by something only to reconsider.  Sometimes to reconsider can be helpful.  Jumping to conclusions can't be good.  But it is easy to fall into that trap.  I try to avoid that as well as avoiding "drinking the Kool Aid."  I wrote about this Kool Aid stuff on this blog too.  I won't be drinking anybody's Kool Aid.  I'm keeping an open mind.

I haven't fallen in love with any one way of solving the energy problem.  It may turn out that the best way will get overlooked when something else is found.  Such has been the case of fission.  Just looking at the way we generate electricity now may look foolish in the future in comparison to how it might be done better with Thorium reactors.  Thorium reactors are smaller, cheaper and safer.  That is not a mere theoretical possibility.  They have already been built.  They weren't commercialized because it was thought better to be able to make bombs.  Thorium is not useful for making bombs.

However, Rossi Focardi may be right around the corner.  This idea may get the lead on Thorium and it may be back to the sidelines for Thorium.  Frankly, it doesn't make any difference to me who wins.  I think we all win when we solve the energy problem.  If it gets solved by fission or fusion- who cares, as long as it works.

Hydrogen peroxide & baking soda

8/6/26:

Ah, yes. It was about that time when I tried growing tomatoes, but it failed. Obviously, I haven't tried again.

The original post: 8/11/19: ... can help you grow your tomatoes.

It is cheap stuff and it probably works.  But I wouldn't know yet, because I haven't tried it.

It is useful to stockpile videos like these because one of these days...

Why go back to the Moon?

8/5/26:

The nation is now committed to going to the Moon again.

Not only the nation, but Elon Musk.

There are practical reasons for going there. There is an abundance of oxygen bound up in the rocks. Oxygen makes up roughly 80% of the reaction mass for the Raptor engines. This reaction mass can be sent to lunar orbit with relatively little cost through the use of propulsion devices on the surface. That could consist of the same kind of technology that flings jets off the new Ford class of Supercarriers--no fuel needed. Not only oxygen, but methane could be produced from the water recycling process used on the ISS. Methane is vented off the ISS, but methane could find some useful purposes on the lunar surface as well. One of these purposes could be in the manufacture of rocket fuels.

The Moon could also be a launching point for the trip to Mars, since its gravitational pull is much less than Earth's. Since the Ship would be full, it could develop a lot more delta-v for a faster trip. A faster trip could lower the exposure of the crew to microgravity and radiation.

The moon could also be developed for its other resources. This and the reasons above could make it economically profitable in its own right. In other words, there's money to be made.

11/19/18: The original post follows: Let's look back at why President Kennedy wanted to go to the Moon.




An analysis of the speech is here.

Key points of the analysis:

• Fear of Sputnik, and the breakneck speed of advancement of that time prepared the audience in advance for the ambitious undertaking that the President advocated.  America must lead that effort, he said.
• The march of progress will go on whether we lead it or not.
• Framed within the context of the Cold War, and inextricably linked to it, it was hard for opponents to be critical of the President's goal.
• Need to be challenged--- "We go to the moon not because it is easy, because it is hard."
• There will be sacrifice of life and treasure, but the sacrifice will be worth it.
• It is like the reason given for climbing Mt. Everest, "it is there".
• Finally, the speech was said to be well executed and effective.

How does that speech compare with the present?  There is no Cold War, but there could be a conflict of some kind on the horizon with China.  The march of progress has gone on indeed, and is much more broad based than just space.  The US is in danger of being left behind across the board, in my opinion.  As for the need for a challenge, it is probably more necessary now than ever.  This country has become too inured to the easy way out.  We need the challenge so that we don't become too soft.  

Mt. Everest is still there, and so is the Moon.  Why not go?  We may be surprised at what we find.

Hot Air: Bad news from NASA: If we don’t reduce carbon emissions, the aliens might come and kill us; Update: Not a NASA report

July 31, 2026:

It seems like a joke to me. Whatever.

August 20, 2011: The original post follows below:

The bad news is, they might not find them. The good news is, the resulting alien invasion will inspire the Keynesian orgy of Paul Krugman’s wettest dreams.

Krugman gets slammed pretty good there, ha ha.   Unfortunately, the incompetence is out there.  The story here is of that very thing.  It has gotten pretty darned bad.  At least NASA isn't that far gone, they have disavowed the report, but the perps are "affiliated" with NASA, nonetheless.  It is really sad that people could write such nonsense.  Even sadder still is that there's people who may believe it.

Coding skills for what?

7/10/26:

I'm juggling all these blogs. No wonder I haven't got much time.

1/12/26: The original post follows:

  Update:

  New blog. Details over there. Anyway, no more blogging on this blog about my coding. All coding issues will be blogged on the new coding blog.

  There is a league at w3schools, where you can compete with others for points. Points are awarded for completed lessons and challenges and so forth.

  This may be bragging, but I tend to finish near the top every week.

  But the competition is not very fierce. It did start that way, but I got suspicious that it wasn't for real. I don't know if I've changed my mind on that or not.

  At this point, there's not much left to do. Perhaps I could go for a certificate, but that means more money spent. I'm not going to spend more money on this. Not that it was all that much anyway.

  The question now is what to do with this. I don't want a job at a company. It may be a marketable skill, but my working career is over. If I could find something that didn't require punching a clock, I'd consider it.

  I don't want to keep posting on this either. So here I am. What to do with this?

A video about Thorium

7/5/26

Another perspective? Probably not... Yours truly has come to suspect that just about anything critical of a technology that will improve conditions for almost all people, is probably an info op. Is this an info op? There's no proof of that here, just a long series of such "reasons" to not push forward with research about new ideas. Examples in the energy field, besides this one include COLD FUSION, ANEUTRONIC FUSION and the like.

Mind you, it is not a conviction that these new ideas will work. It is the insistence upon maintaining the status quo that I suspect. The status quo means nothing new can be allowed. Know what I mean, Vern?

3/19/19:

And it isn't made by the Thorium guys.  Perhaps a different perspective will yield a different answer to the question posed.

His answer was something on the order of "maybe".

Some of what he said seems questionable to me, but maybe I am a little biased in favor of Thorium.

Finally, you don't need Thorium in order to run a molten-salt reactor.  The molten-salt reactor technology would work with uranium.  Thorium is an added bonus.  If you disagree with using thorium, you can still use uranium and it will work fine.  As a matter of fact, there are some folks out there who would like to do that very thing.

One of the more aggressive outfits who is pursuing this strategy is Thorcon.  ( Perhaps I got that wrong.  Look at their name. THORcon? )  Thorcon wants to start making reactors within the five years of so.  Maybe even sooner.

Be on the lookout then, for Thorcon.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

7/3/26:

For those who believe that Milton Friedman's monetary causation of inflation is correct, the idea that oil pricing can cause inflation is itself (most likely ) a lie.

Virtue does not rule the world--vice does. Anybody who lies about things like this is not of virtue, but of vice. Yep. Nobody's pure. Nobody's entirely clean. If you complain about high pump prices, it is not because you care about inflation. In my case, I was driving a lot in 2011 until I retired from trucking in 2016. I had a VESTED interest in lower gasoline prices. My motives were not pure. But when are they? Ever????

5/20/11:

Inflation will rise abnormally because of seasonal variations.  You can think of it what you want.  When you see high prices at the pump and they say "no inflation", I think somebody is lying.

DPF Fusion Propulsion

7/2/2026:

  DPF-based propulsion seemed promising then, and even more promising now that SpaceX has all but solved the re-useable rocket puzzle. Launch costs and mass capabilities would make this concept more feasible than ever.

  Deep space exploration would no longer be science fiction.

  The opening of the solar system would definitely be in play. It sounds corny, but the sky would be the limit.

  I checked the NextBigFuture link. It's still good. Very detailed study. This isn't pie-in-the-sky, especially now.

9/14/2011: The original post follows:

Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) Fusion Systems for Space Propulsion


This was a Next Big Future post last year. I don't think I've seen it before. This idea seem intuitive to me from observing the diagrams and illustrations of how the DPF works. It seems like a natural for space propulsion. The post here seems rather more involved than I anticipated for the device.

Surprising to me that work proceeds on this as of the time this post was written. If it continues to this day, it is hard to imagine why anyone would want to build chemical rockets. This would make chemical rockets obsolete. ( Unless I am missing something important)

I brought up that last bit of info because NASA announces its new SLS that won't fly any earlier than 2017. By 2017, the tech could very well be obsolete. Not only with respect to this possible breakthrough, but consider what others (SpaceX and Xcor) are doing as well.

Pouring concrete

6/29/26:

Yours truly has a life-long habit of biting off more than I can chew. A project like this back in 2019 would've have been too much for me. A project like this now would be insane.

This idea was far too late in coming. Way too old for this stuff.

Shoot, the dude talks all about how you need to know what you're doing for a project like this. Indeed, I did something like this once with my brother who builds houses. Or he DID build houses. He is sorta retired now.

So I KNOW what he's talking about here. No, I need to stick to something more realistic for me. This ain't it.

9/11/19: The original post is below:

Comment:

This is more or less the fine points of a big pour.

Seven Skinny E-Cats Eating Seven Fat Cats

6/29/26:

The Biblical reference got my attention. Ah! Here's another of the blasts from the past. From the blog EGO OUT. It seems that the gentleman may have died(?) during that time to this. How unfortunate. It comes to us all, eventually. I do not wish to be morbid here, but I have my own situation.

Anyway, his wife(?) is continuing the blog. Time does not permit me to spend much time on things these days. It is another unfortunate fact of life. Today will be yet another busy day. Hopefully good news will come of it. Hard to say at this point.

Long ago I noticed a pattern of behavior in this world, which ignores developments that have some promise to them. There are many examples of this. I attributed this pattern to something I called the Tiberius Syndrome. This is relation to what Peter Diamandis once related about the Roman Emperor Tiberius. It seems that someone brought the discovery of the new metal (aluminum) to Tiberius' attention. Tiberius was so impressed that he had the man killed. Why? Tiberius' interests were threatened by this new metal. As it has been said, history repeats. First as tragedy, then as farce.

Things may never change, but there's always the hope that it can.

Sunday, October 16, 2011: The original post follows:



EGO OUT: (comments regarding the Oct.6 Fat Cat experiment) Quoting from Ni-H LENR Genesis 40:21 (a chapter of the Transition Metal LENR Great B...

Comment:  Not a good review of the e-cat demo of Oct 6th.  Quote:

It has happened again- not the ugly facts were slaying beautiful hypotheses but bad experiments have ruined good ideas. 

He may have a point, there.  Anything good could get lost in a maze if improperly executed.  People will get hung up on the process, not the product.

Mining the Sky

6/26/26:

If memory serves, this is one of the earliest posts for the Boots and Oil blog. My history with blogging goes back further, to 2004. Blogging was a new thing in that time, but all the oxygen went out of the space once Facebook, Twitter, and so forth became big time haunts for the public. Quick note: This post was spun off the Main blog and placed in this blog, which was once called Kardashevian Aspirations. The name of this blog has changed in order to protect the innocent.

Getting some traction out there has become friggin' impossible. I've been doing this steadily for fifteen years, and still like a salmon swimming upstream. But that's okay. I'm doing what I like to do.

As for Mining the Sky? With Elon Musk's new Starship coming online, this is becoming feasible. The one technology that is not proven, yet necessary for this to happen, will be orbital refueling.

There are more and better ways to skin that cat, which is something that is covered in the blog. No time to look for that for ya'll. It's there, you just have to look around!

9/29/10:

The title of this post is the title of a book that can be purchased on Amazon.
I didn't read it, but it does has some interesting ideas.

I thought about this after reading a proposal to put fuel in the sky for space
missions into deep space, such as a trip to Mars. It is much more efficient
to put a fuel station in orbit than to launch all the fuel you need and put it
into space all at the same time.

The means to do this would be a space cannon in the sea. The space cannon
concept is getting near the proof of concept phase according to one article I
read in Next Big Future. If this concept does indeed work, a mission to Mars
becomes much more affordable and feasible.

The space cannon will launch small projectiles into space in rapid fire order.
Therefore, it can launch a lot of stuff in a small amount of time. Just collect
the stuff in one location, like a gas station in orbit, and then fill up with a space
ship that can be launched into orbit separately. Once the space ship has enough
fuel for its long journey back and forth, its off to Mars. Or anywhere else you
may want to go.

A trip to Mars would be a science mission. But a trip to the asteroids could
become a commercial mission. There's gold in them thar asteroids. Also platinum
and numerous other rare metals that would be handy to have here on earth.
Something to think about, hm?

Makeshift lunar lander using materials from the ET

6/23/26, Update::

This is an interesting idea. The SLS is Shuttle derived technology. So the same thing could be done with the external tank (ET) of the SLS. It really wouldn't take that much to make the tech resusable. What was true of the Shuttle is still true with the SLS. Why would it not take much?

It's one of the cool things about the Shuttle that people may have overlooked. When the Shuttle dropped its External Tank, it was only at 98% orbital velocity. The point being that it needed a bit more boost to get to orbit. So the ET was dropped into the Indian Ocean in order to reduce mass, and the OMS thrusters took the Shuttle to orbit. The OMS thrusters weren't all that powerful, but didn't need to be. Likewise with the SLS. If OMS thrusters were added to the system, it could get to orbit. Or if more fuel was added somewhere in the architecture. Maybe with the boosters. It wasn't done during the Shuttle Era, but why now?

They didn't have any plans for such a big object in space, so the easiest thing to do was to expend it. What a waste. Each launch costs over a billion dollars. If all the pieces were reusable, the system could be cheaper. But it isn't cheaper. It's horribly expensive.

Saturday, November 27, 2010: The original post follows:

 Let's assume that you could get the ET to L1.  How can the materials from the tank be used to set up a Moon base?  

Here's the internals of the tank again.  From right working to the left,
there is the liquid oxygen tank,
then the intertank,
followed by the big liquid hydrogen tank.

Let's start with the oxygen tank.  It's the smaller of the two propellant tanks and it looks like a convenient shape.  Could this tank be fashioned into a lander of some sort?

If it were possible, attach legs and rocket engines to the bottom of this tank.  There are some big rocket nozzles at the bottom of the big hydrogen tank.  Detach those and reattach them to the oxygen tank.  Use the intertank as material.  Use the hydrogen tank as a solar furnace, melt down and/or cut the metal needed for the legs and attach it below and/or around the rocket nozzles at the base.

How could that be done?  Make some cable out of the intertank and a harness to tighten up the entire assembly into one tight package.  The harness for the cable would span between the top of the cone of the oxygen tank down to the leg assembly.  At the cone, it would be a circular ring where the cable could fit.  The "leg" assembly could be just the round intertank with spaces cut out of round cylindrical shape of it.  Cut out the middle of the intertank and with all the spaces cut out, you could have room for the rocket nozzles to fit into that space.

There would be enough space between the rocket nozzles and the intertank to give clearance at the lunar surface.  If the nozzles are too big, maybe you could use just one of them.  You would need a way to secure the nozzle to the intertank and that assembly to the oxygen tank with the cable and harness system described. Hook up the rocket nozzle to some smaller fuel tanks that may be fashioned out the remaining material, or brought up from Earth.  

If this contrived contraption worked, it would be left on the lunar surface and serve as the first piece of a lunar base.

Testing Amazon's 3 cheapest welders

6/21/26:

There's another idea along this line. Place a mini-quonset on top of the van. The mini-quonset could be used as a sleeper in order to camp out.

Yep, it might be feasible to turn the van and trailer into something that could allow a stay of a few days on the land from time-to-time.

Jan 22, 2025: The orginal post follows:

Still got that 5'x8' trailer, which I could possibly use on a trip way out to yonder and back. The idea is to make it portable. There would be some welds of attach points for some boards to install at the destination. Putting it all together on site and then taking it back down when departing.

Making it portable would also make it easier to move around. I don't like the idea of putting a trailer together and then finding out that it can't take the trip.

Besides, a trailer like this needs some welding done to it anyway. Just never got around to it. Besides, I never did welding before, so I wonder what kind of job I'd do. Probably not the best, as this tends to be the pattern.

Good lively discussion

6/20/26:

What hath 15 years wrought? A couple of SLS flights for the government, using 50 year old tech. On the private side, SpaceX is making getting to orbit CHEAP.

Most of the benefits of the government spending went to bureaucrats.

Most of the benefits of private space goes to the people! Folks don't see it yet, but it is coming soon... Most anybody who wants to go to orbit will be able to...

Feb 15, 2011: The original post follows:

Reactions to NASA budget at SpacePolitics.

Morning Summary, 7/3

6/15/26:

Note: Sitemeter is not used here anymore. It hasn't been used for quite a long time.

Does bot traffic count as well as human traffic? It seems that there was some news that bot traffic is now greater than human traffic on the web!

Do the bots love this blog? People probably not so much. But bot traffic seems to be healthy. How healthy? It's hard to say. I could ask a bot, I suppose. Maybe I'd get an honest answer. Certainly not from people.

This commentary upon the human race is a bit on the pessimisstic side. Maybe the bots can tell me if I spelled that p word right. It is a long word. It taxes my brain, main.

July 3, 2011:

Several hours late this morning. I've been a bit busy doing the usual Sunday chores, but that isn't enough to cause this. Sure, my enthusiasm is waning. There was somebody who contacted me on email about possibly advertising on this site, but the timing is not so good. Now is not a good time. The best time would have been when readership was increasing. It is going down now, and the ecat is the only thing keeping it going.

Hopefully, the ecat can come through and this blog can be on the forefront of that news. That would be a miracle. You know how it goes. The big guys will swoop down and take all the oxygen from a little blog like this as soon as this thing becomes a real media sensation. Nobody will come here or to any other blog that is supporting the idea even though it isn't mainstream. As soon as it goes mainstream, they will got the mainstream blogs, even though none of them are supporting this now. But one can always hope.

Type III Dyson Sphere of Highly Advanced Civilizations Around a Super Massive Black Hole

6/13/26:

Forget about all that. Look at this! Nobody can relate to highly advanced civilizations around a super massive black hole, but they sure can relate to massive amounts of money. Show me the money??? Yeah, lots and lots of it.



Jan 20, 2012:

Type III Dyson Sphere of Highly Advanced Civilizations Around a Super Massive Black Hole

How 19 Beavers Turned Utah’s Dying Desert River Into a Thriving Oasis

6/3/26:



Beavers and buffalo---two critters that could help transform that area into productive land. Or so I think.

Trouble is, getting them there.

Mar 23, 2026:

There are plenty of these beaver videos. A glance of the comments shows some negativity about this particular video. Nevertheless, it will be embedded here as an example of what may be possible out in West Texas. The video mentioned some studies of how to use beavers in other areas. Which opens up the question of whether or not any such study for West Texas.

There are a lot of stock tanks out there. What if a small colony were to be set up around these stock tanks? Would they survive? Would it improve the area?

Suckers born every minute

6/3/26:

It is worth noting that I terminated the account at Twitter before Elon Musk bought out Twitter and renamed it "X". I opened a new account under X. That's why this particular tweet won't show. It's no longer there.

A second comment to this is that it contains political opinion. I'm trying to avoid that on this blog and keep it on the other. Flat Earth is dumb. Go watch a Starship launch, and that should disabuse anyone of any such notion as a Flat Earth. The same goes for the notion that the Apollo landings were fake.

I will make a new category on this blog as in the main blog---call it "reaction posts".



11/28/18:

That's why AGW works politically. People can be led to believe the most absurd things.

Hundreds gather at Flat-Earth conference https://t.co/YQ3fDCArLY

— Greg Meadows (@BootsandOilBlog) November 28, 2018