Anyone who has started a campfire without an accelerate knows that it can be surprisingly difficult to get a good strong self-sustaining flame going, even with the aid of matches or a lighter.   For early man, it was much more difficult still.  Simply being able to consistently create a fire and contain it for use demonstrates a high degree of intelligence and the ability to learn.

Now scientists have discovered evidence that it may have happened earlier than we had previously believed.

Via CBS News:

Humans used fire 1 million years ago, says study
(AP) NEW YORK – When did our ancestors first use fire? That’s been a long-running debate, and now a new study concludes the earliest firm evidence comes from about 1 million years ago in a South African cave.

The ash and burnt bone samples found there suggest fires frequently burned in that spot, researchers said Monday.

Over the years, some experts have cited evidence of fire from as long as 1.5 million years ago, and some have argued it was used even earlier, a key step toward evolution of a larger brain. It’s a tricky issue. Even if you find evidence of an ancient blaze, how do you know it wasn’t just a wildfire?

The new research makes “a pretty strong case” for the site in South Africa’s Wonderwerk Cave, said Francesco Berna of Boston University, who presents the work with colleagues in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

One expert said the new finding should be considered together with a previous discovery nearby, of about the same age. Burnt bones also have been found in the Swartkrans cave, not far from the new site, and the combination makes a stronger case than either one alone, said Anne Skinner of Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., who was not involved in the new study.

Another expert unconnected with the work, Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University in The Netherlands, said by email that while the new research does not provide “rock solid” evidence, it suggests our ancestors probably did use fire there at that time.

One thing I have always wondered about, and of course, we will never know, is how many ancients may have learned of fire only to abandon it out of fear. Certainly not all of early man’s encounters with fire were pleasant. It may first have been experienced in the wildfires started by spontaneous combustion of overheated turf or from a lightning strike. Such an experience would be terrifying, and once man began to experiment with fire, it’s all but certain that some mishaps and burns occurred.

Yet some groups stuck with it. Perhaps it was because it was recognized as useful or maybe because it frightened others. Maybe it was just curiosity. Whatever the case, at some point, someone began to create fires and, despite perhaps suffering a few burns or coughing on smoke and enduring the frustration of seeing the tiny smoldering embers go out, they learned how to tame and use fire.

Might there have been some tribes that had mastered fire and others that did not? If so, it’s almost certain that this advantage would have lead to those with fire succeeding and those who didn’t falling by the wayside. This could have even been a factor in early human evolution.

But what i early mankind looked at fire the way we look at new forms of energy today? Would they have used fire at all?  It’s a sobering thought to consider that if our ancestors had the same attitude we have today, we might still be eating raw meat, huddled in mud huts at the mercy of the cold darkness of night…

A little anal? I’d say so, considering how bad science and history are generally portrayed in movies. I doubt anyone actually noticed this besides Dr. Tyson.

Whatever your side on this, I also think James Camron did have a pretty good shoot-down for Dr. Tyson.

But he did get his way…

Via Contact Music:

Cameron Changes Stars In Titanic
Moviemaker James Cameron has re-edited a scene in Titanic showing stars sparkling in the night sky – after a leading astronomer told him the astral alignment was incorrect.

The director unveiled a 3D version of his multi-Oscar winning classic last month (Mar12) and he resisted the temptation to use its reworking as an excuse to cut scenes he’s no longer happy with.

But there was one shot Cameron felt obliged to alter, because a top stargazer informed him the astral pattern onscreen was incorrect for the night the liner sank in 1912.

The scene involves Kate Winslet’s character, Rose DeWitt Bukater, drifting on a piece of wood and gazing at the night sky as the disaster unfolds.

Cameron tells British magazine Culture, “Oh, there is one shot that I fixed. It’s because Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is one of the U.S.’ leading astronomers, sent me quite a snarky email saying that, at that time of year, in that position in the Atlantic in 1912, when Rose is lying on the piece of driftwood and staring up at the stars, that is not the star field she would have seen, and with my reputation as a perfectionist, I should have known that and I should have put the right star field in.

“So I said, ‘All right, you son of a b**ch, send me the right stars for the exact time, 4.20am on April 15, 1912, and I’ll put it in the movie.’ So that’s the one shot that has been changed.”

There is something very striking about this image even at first glance.  Notice that the no-entry zone has absolutely no correspondence whatsoever to radiation levels.  It’s simply a circle drawn around the nuclear plant.   Much of the area has quite low radiation levels and some of the area outside the exclusion zone has higher radiation levels than the area within it.  Since there’s now no real danger of the reactors being further damaged or experiencing uncontrolled discharges, there’s absolutely no reason to enforce a no-entry zone based on such a blind method of drawing the map.   If a no-entry zone is to exist at all (which it really, at this point, does not need to)

Actual Doses experienced:

Few areas exceed 20 uSv per hour by very much.  The red area signifies areas with higher than this level, but most of this area is only slightly above 20 uSv/hr.  Areas with 20 uSv/hr or more exist in a relatively narrow strip running northwest from the area of the nuclear plant.

A person lives in an area where the external radiation dose rate is 20 uSv/hr.    Of course, this is really only outdoors and inside there will be less contamination, but for the sake of argument, lets assume the worst:  They get 20 uSv/hr and they stay in that are all the time.  There are 8760 hours in a year, so if they spend all their time outdoors in the 20 uSv/hr area, they receive 175,200 uSv per year or about 175 mSv per year.

This is still a bit unreasonable for what a person would actually be exposed to because it assumes they are always outdoors and standing over ground that has not been in any way cleaned of contamination.  Indoors, the level will be a lot lower.  If they travel outside the area of highest radiation, their dose is also reduced.   As time goes on, both radioactive decay and natural weathering and erosion will reduce levels further.   Therefore, after a year in such an area, it’s more reasonable to expect a total exposure of something like 100-150 mSv and maybe quite a bit less.

Most of the no-entry zone is far bellow this.  The yellow areas would produce only about half the dose of the highest regions and the areas shaded green would result in an annual dose of only about 10-30 mSv her year.  That’s hardly a lot of radiation.

How much radiation a person is exposed to in a year from background sources varies greatly depending on things like location, diet, travel and things like whether they happen to cook with natural gas, live in a granite structure or have radon seeping into their home’s foundation.   About 3 mSv is a normal average for those living at sea level in much of the world.   Of course, it’s quite common for it to be much higher than this.   Areas with background radiation in excess of 10 mSv per year are quite common.  A few areas have much higher.   In the Guarpari region of Brazil, background levels can exceed 175 mSv per year due to local deposits of uranium and thorium.  Residents of Kerala India experience doses of over 70 mSv per year.   Ramsir Iran is famous for having some of the highest levels in the world at over 260 mSv per year.  Locations across Africa and Australia may produce levels above 40 mSv per year.

Studies have been done of the populations of these areas and no ill effects have been documented as a result of the high radiation exposure.   Of course, the expected radiation exposure from living in such an area for an extended period of time would be much higher than for those in the Fukushima area.   Since the radioactivity in the Fukushima region is mostly limited to the surface and includes many relatively short-lived radioisotopes, it will diminish significantly in the years to come.   Natural sources, on the other hand, are constantly replenished.  So a person who lives in an area with increased radiation levels as a result of the Fukushima incident will not experience the same dose next year as they will this year.  It will be less.

And no, there have been no calls that high background areas of the world be evacuated and declared off limits.

Visitation:

Living in the vast majority of the area around Fukushima would result in a radiation dose lower than living in many areas of the world and which could reasonably be considered acceptable.   Visiting these areas, even for extended periods of time, in order to recover property, secure damaged structures and begin the cleanup would result in even lower levels of exposure.  If a person were allowed to travel to the area and spent a cumulative few days in one of the highest areas of radiation, they would receive less exposure than from a dental x-ray.  A person could spend a month in the regions of highest radiation and experience a total increase in annual dose that would be less than that millions of people around the world live with for their entire lives.   Traveling through the area would result in even lower radiation exposure.

A More Reasonable Proposal:

I’d like to propose a more science-based and less restrictive zoning for the area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant.   Under this proposal, the evacuation and no-entry order would be immediately lifted and the vast majority of the area would be available for immediate resettlement, property recovery and rebuilding.

Two zones would remain for the immediate future, the exclusion zone and the limited access zone.

The Exclusion Zone:

The area immediately around the plant boundary.  This area would be accessible to plant workers, recovery teams and others involved in the cleanup, survey and general maintenance. The reason for keeping members of the public out is not only to reduce radiation exposure but also because this area is the primary area of remediation activity and is being used as a staging area for equipment and personnel.  Those working in the area would need to follow standard procedure for dosimeter.

Limited, escorted visits by those who may live just outside the plant perimeter would be allowed for the purposes of recovering property, surveying damage and securing structures that may remain intact.

Limited Access Zone:

This area is defined not by simple distance from the plant but rather follows the approximate area of the highest radiation levels.  Visitation to this area and travel through it would not be subject to major restrictions.   The only restriction to access would be that the area would not be zoned for full time resettlement.   While those living in that area would be allowed to visit their homes without supervision, they would continue to be offered shelter elsewhere and it would be requested that they not permanently settle into the area or remain there for several consecutive days, although such restrictions would be more of a request than a strongly enforced rule.

Recovery efforts, repair of infrastructure traversing the area and recovery efforts would begin immediately with little or no restriction.  As the area would be considered to be free to visit but not designated for resettlement, schools, post offices and other facilities catering to residents would remain closed, but would be repaired and secured.   Basic services like fire and ambulances would be restored as soon as possible.

Those wishing to resettle sooner in the area could begin remediation work, such as power washing surfaces and removing top soil and could have their property surveyed for safety and radiation levels.   If a government-approved surveyor confirms that the total radiation levels for a structure and surrounding area are within certain standards and that the structure has been repaired to meet building codes, that property could be issued a certificate for residency.

The limited access zone would be the only area subject to government sponsored cleanup and radiation remediation measures.  Areas outside this region would only receive such attention if an exceptionally high reading was found on a “hot spot.”  Other than that, it’s just not worth the amount it would cost to reduce already low levels.

Eventually all resettlement limits would be lifted and the exclusion zone around the plant would also be eventually withdrawn, pending how the future of the recovery plays out.

To the health physicists, radiation safety officers, radiologists, reactor operators and other radiation safety professionals of the world:

In most circumstances professionalism and a desire to remain impartial to political matters dictates that those who art part of highly scientific professions exercise a great deal of restraint while addressing pressing policy concerns.   Research scientists especially tend to be very tight lipped about policy matters and are not prone to engaging the media directly.   In many circumstances, there is no direct response from professionals, or if there is, it comes in the form of highly moderated and subdued official statements from organizations.

There is certainly good reason for this.  Science professionals must remain impartial and not risk having their loyalties called into question.   Strong statements about pressing issues of policy can result in criticism which degenerates to mudslinging.  Some experts would simply rather not have to engage non-professionals who are likely to respond with a frustrating lack of understanding of their fields and believe their talents are better utilized in the world of scholarly journals and professional research.  There is, of course, some risk to ones reputation and to the integrity of ones work that can come from becoming heavily involved in issues of advocacy and direct engagement of the government, media and public.

That said, there exists a humanitarian crisis that is only getting worse due to a combination of unjustified fear of ionizing radiation and pressure to exploit this fear to advance a political or social agenda.   The result has been a enormous unnecessary human suffering.  Those with professional credentials and credibility in the field of radiation safety are in a unique position to help bring this crisis to an end, and, as such, have an ethical duty to do so.

Since the tragic earthquake and tsunami struck Japan almost a year ago, hundreds of thousands of Japanese remain in limbo due to unnecessary evacuations and continued restrictions on habitation or even visitation to the area around the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.   The earthquake and tsunami killed tens of thousands and left whole communities devastated.   In such circumstances, the survivors want nothing more than to recover what property they can and begin to rebuild their lives.  Yet this has not been allowed to happen.  Despite the fact that the radiation exposure in the exclusion zone is well within any reasonable safety limits, many have been bared from even visiting their homes.   In the time after the disaster, domestic animals needlessly starved, property that could have been recovered was lost and serious chemical and biological hazards were allowed to fester.   This continues to happen even as the reactors have been stabilized and the most worrisome isotopes have long decayed away.

In addition to this tragedy, the Japanese government continues to spend enormous amounts of money in the cleanup of areas where radiation “hot spots” would result in only the most minimal of exposure and in a policy of idling most of the country’s nuclear power plants, resulting in huge economic losses.   What the people of Japan sorely need is to have the damaged regions of their nation rebuilt.  Every Yen spent on the unnecessary removal of soil is one more Yen that cannot be spent on the necessary rehabilitation of the areas effected by the quake and tsunami.  The message being given to citizens is that they are in grave danger, especially their children.  Inconsistent information, panic and confusion have resulted in enormous psychological stresses to those who have already suffered from the terrible natural disaster.

I therefore ask all radiation safety professionals of the world to stop biting your tongues and speak out loudly and in no uncertain terms, engaging the public, the media and the Japanese government as directly and candidly as possible.  The Japanese people need to be told the truth, without the fear-based spin that politicians often use to try to scare their way into office or special interest groups try to exploit.   The Japanese government must be urged to begin a far more measured and scientifically consistent approach to resettlement and repair that is based on the anual exposure from living in a region as compared with normal background in locations around the world.   Resources should not be wasted in the removal of small “hot spots” which are no more radioactive than clusters of uranium-bearing rock.   All areas should be made accessible to visitation and most to resettlement.    Repairs to local infrastructure and economic assets must take precedent over concerns of radioactivity that have little or no basis in science.

As experts in this field, you are the only ones who can challenge these policies and overrule them by virtue of the authority you have gained through education and experience.   Doing so may well open you to the mud-slinging of certain groups, who would rather not face the truth.   Yet in the face of such suffering, caving to the fear of being attacked by dishonorable interests is the height of cowardice.

In conclusion, I once again ask that all professionals in this field take individual initiative to take a stand against these harmful policies and messages and that groups like the Health Physics Society and others step up to the plate and pull no punches in defense of the well being of the people of Japan.  Your field stands for the furtherance of human understanding and for improved human safety and health.  These ideals demand that you step up to the plate and fight for the refugees of fear who continue to suffer in Japan.

Respectfully,

Stephen M. Packard
depletedcranium.com

What can I say about Randi that hasn’t already been said?   He’s been a giant in the skeptic movement, and over the years he has been personally responsible for toppling many scam artists and exposing charlatans around the world.  Now in his 80’s, he’s still a dynamo who is always out there advancing the cause of empirical skepticism.

I’ve disagreed with Randi on many occasions.   However, he has still been one of the most important mentors I have had in becoming an activist for good science and skepticism.  Randi’s most striking feature is that, despite his status, he is never too busy to provide some personal guidance or help to any aspiring skeptic.   He’s easily approachable and has endless enthusiasm for helping others get involved in the cause.

There is no doubt that Mr. Randi is largely responsible for the recent explosion of skepticism and expansion of skeptical advocacy to include those who had not previously been heavily involved.   For many years, one of the biggest problems with skepticism is that it has been limited primarily to older white male academics.  Randi, with his charisma, showmanship and understanding of the importance of inclusion, has helped transform it into a movement which now includes more young people and a greater diversity of gender, race and background than ever before.

Dear Depleted Cranium

The price of gas keeps going up but I can’t afford a new car and I really just want to figure out if there’s a way to make my car run more efficiently and burn less fuel.  It would be nice if it made the performance better too.  I really am more interested in saving gas.  I keep seeing all these products that go onto the gas line or the air filter or somehow are connected electrically.  I keep hearing that they are scams.   They sound too good to be true, so probably are.

Is there something that is not a scan that will boost my cars fuel mileage?

The internal combustion engine is a mature technology that has been tweaked and tinkered with for many years. The car business is cutthroat so manufacturers are trying to make their engines as efficient as possible. If there was a simple device like a magnet you could slap on to make the car burn fuel better it would come standard. A few more miles per gallon is a big deal in the automotive industry, especially at today’s fuel prices.

That said, there are a few things that could potentially improve the fuel efficiency of a car and also boost performance, but not by a huge amount:

1. Keep the car well maintained and tuned – In a new car this is not going to make any difference, but as time goes on, spark plugs wear out, potentially resulting in less perfect ignition.  Fuel injectors can get dirty and oil degrades.  Just keep the car in good repair and it will provide the best fuel economy possible.  Check the owners manual to see how often you should bring it in for a tune-up.  Also keep the tires properly inflated.  But don’t expect any of this to make that big a difference.  Unless the car is in pretty bad need of maintenance, it won’t make a noticeable difference.
2. Add a cold air intake – I am a little hesitant to suggest this, because in my experience it really does not produce any improvement you’ll notice, but at least in principle, if you can get the intake air temperature cooler, it will improve overall engine efficiency.  Most engines take in air under the hood where it’s already pretty hot.  A good cold air intake sucks in air from an area where it has not been preheated much by the engine.  It also should not restrict the flow of air by much, since that makes the engine work harder.  I’d recommend against putting one in if you don’t know what you’re doing, because improper installation can cause a lot of problems, some of which could ruin your engine.  And in any case, don’t expect this to make more than a very modest difference.
3. Upgrade to a low resistance exhaust system – The exhaust system you choose for your car never will improve the performance of the engine directly.  An engine will always do best if it has no exhaust system at all, and just vents out the gas directly from the exhaust manifold.   That would be very loud and dirty, however, and modern regulations require a catalytic converter.  Pushing the exhaust through the piping, the catalytic converter and the muffler makes the engine do a little extra work.  Therefore, if you install an exhaust system with less resistance, such as larger pipes and a less restrictive muffler, it can result in the engine generating slightly more horsepower from the same amount of fuel.   Again, don’t expect anything major from this.  Most people who put performance mufflers on their car really just want it to sound loud and obnoxious.  Making the exhaust system actually as low resistance as possible requires completely rebuilding it, which is expensive and probably not worth the modest savings you’ll get.
4. Modify the ECM Code – I am again hesitant to include this one, because usually it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Modern cars have an electronic engine control module which can often be modified by using a programer or by replacing the original ECM with one that is modified with new firmware. Most car manufacturers code their ECM to provide the best compromise between fuel economy, performance, engine response and so on. In some cases, it’s possible to gain more of one of these by making trade offs on the others. For example, some modifiers can squeeze a tiny bit more power out of their engine by sacrificing fuel economy. It’s also possible that you could make the engine use a little bit less fuel if you tweak it to rev up a bit slower or change other aspects of the engine. I don’t really recommend this, especially if you’re not sure of what you’re doing, and because you will ultimately end up having to make tradeoffs somewhere, since the manufacturer already does a pretty good job of balancing performance, fuel economy, reliability, response and so on.
5. Add a turbocharger – This is probably the one thing that can actually result in a major increase in performance and overall efficiency to an internal combustion engine.  It uses a turbine, powered by the exhaust flow of the car, to spin another turbine that compresses the intake air before it reaches the engine.  Because the engine gets more air, it can operate more efficiently.   This will almost always produce better performance.  It may also improve gas mileage, but that really depends on the engine and how you tune it.  You will definitely need to reprogram the engine controller if the engine did not come with a turbo charger.There may be complications.  Not all engines can take the added compression, the additional compression may require you use higher octane fuel in the engine, which would defeat any potential savings and the turbocharger can be difficult to install depending on the car.  Turbochargers get very hot and therefore may need additional cooling components.  Installing them requires re-routing the engines exhaust and intake air.   It’s a complex job and not all engines provide a good place to locate the turbocharger.

   Turbochargers are expensive, especially when you factor in professional installation, which is required unless you really know what you are doing.  They may or may not actually result in a noticeable improvement in mileage.  When they do, it’s still not generally going to result in enough savings to pay for the cost of installation.  For this reason, turbochargers are generally installed for performance reasons but not to provide improved fuel economy, at least not in gasoline engines.

I’m sorry but that’s pretty much it. Aside from other basic things like trying to accelerate gradually and not gun the engine too much, avoiding any unnecessary items mounted to the outside of the car, which may increase drag and things like that, those are really the only things you can do and they probably won’t help enough to make them worth the effort, with the exception of keeping the car well maintained, which is always a good idea anyway.

At the time, many scientists expressed skepticism, and rightfully so.  All data to this point has indicated that nothing travels faster than the established speed of light.  Neutrinos have been observed from distant stellar supernovas, and they arrived at the same time as light from the supernova, indicating they did not travel faster.  However, it was suggested that the high energy levels of the neutrinos generated by accelerators may have pushed them a little faster.  Still, if true, this could undermine the foundation of relativity, a well tested and universally accepted fact in science.

Many things were proposed as an explanation for the discrepancy.  It could have been that the measurements of distances were not accurate, despite extreme steps being taken to confirm them.   It was suggested that there could have been relativistic factors involving the rotation of the earth or local gravity coming into play and causing distortions in time.

Now, however, we have a much simpler explanation.  While it has not been proven to be the case, suspicion has turned to a loose cable that was part of the time synchronization system.

Via the CS Monitor:

Loose cable could explain ‘faster-than-light’ neutrinos
Those famous neutrinos that appeared to travel faster than light in an Italian experiment last September probably did not do so after all. A faulty connection between a GPS receiver and a computer may be to blame for the mistake.

In September, and again in a repeat run in November, scientists on the OPERA team had detected neutrinos travelling from the CERN laboratory in Geneva to the Gran Sasso Laboratory near Rome at what appeared to be a light-speed-shattering pace. The neutrinos completed the trip about 60 nanoseconds faster than a beam of light would have done.

Though the physicists felt confident in their experimental setup, they and the rest of the scientific community suspected that the shocking result was probably due to some error, considering that light as the universe’s speed limit is a central tenet of Einstein’s theory of special relativity.

And indeed, in November, another group of physicists also working at Gran Sasso Laboratory demonstrated that the neutrinos in question could not possibly have been traveling faster than light, because if they had, they would have given off a telltale type of radiation, which was not detected.

Further complicating matters, even the OPERA scientists couldn’t yet explain why the neutrinos clocked in as fast as they did. Now, according to Science Insider, sources familiar with the OPERA experiment say a fiber optic cable connecting a GPS receiver and an electronic card in one of the lab computers was discovered to be loose. (The GPS was used to synchronize the start and arrival times of the neutrinos).

Tightening the connection changed the time it took for data to travel the length of the fiber by 60 nanoseconds. Because this data processing time was subtracted from the overall time-of-flight in the neutrino experiment, the correction may explain the seemingly early arrival of the neutrinos. To confirm this hypothesis, the OPERA team will have to repeat their experiment with the fiber optic cable secured.

The fiber optic cable was loose but was still connected to the system and signals were able to be passed. In many circumstances, this would not have made much difference, but since the measurements in this case had to be precise to within billionths of a second, it does matter. When measuring events like neutrino detection, it’s important to remember that the detectors and their signals are never truly instantaneous. When a neutrino strikes the detection medium, it produces light. That light takes a few picoseconds to reach the photomultipliers that detect it. The photomultiplier takes a few picoseconds to respond and the signal then goes through amplifiers and wiring before it is registered, taking nanoseconds or even microseconds. This all has to be accounted for. Lengths of cable must be measured precisely and the time for the signals to propagate calculated. Timing circuits must be equally precise and compensated.

The image above and to the right shows some of the stacks of detection medium at the OPERA neutrino observatory, where these observations were made.

Because the fiberoptic cable was loose and did not have as solid a connection as expected, the light that was being transmitted to the instrument can bounce around a little bit before it is detected. The fine calibration of the system that registers each pulse of light may be upset or the pulses of light can be distorted, causing them to trigger a timer differently.

It should be noted that we do not have proof positive that this caused the discrepancy. The experiment will need to be repeated with the loose connector fixed in order to establish more reliable data. However, it now appears that this was likely the culprit. This is indeed how science should work. Extraordinary claims should be met with skepticism, regardless of how well established those making the claims are. Ultimately, judgement must be held until the experimental setup and data have been very thoroughly audited and reviewed and the results confirmed by other researchers repeating the experiment independently.

I’d be willing to bet money that the results will not show neutrinos traveling faster than light after the experiment is repeated with all the timing systems double-checked. If that is the case, those involved will certainly have some egg on their faces, but hopefully they will not receive too much professional rebuke. In such a complex scientific experiment, mistakes can happen and in this case, the scientists did the right thing by opening their data to the interpretation of others and inviting them to find flaws. No scientist should ever be penalized for saying “It turns out I was wrong. I thought I had good data I could be confident in, but it was pointed out that there was a flaw I was unaware of.”

• It is highly radioactive.  Because it is a very high energy alpha emitter, it is very radiotoxic.  It also produces a long decay chain of daughters that emit high energy gamma and beta particles.
• It has a half-life of over one thousand years, making it difficult to dispose of and requiring long term storage considerations.   Despite the relatively long half-life, it is still short enough to make it highly radiotoxic, especially because of the nature of the radiation it emits directly and through its daughters.
• It emits enough gamma radiation that a pure sample of the material can kill tissue on contact, after only exposure of a few minutes.
• The gamma radiation emitted by the material and its daughters is sufficient that if you sat next to a few dozen grams of the material, you could easily end up with acute radiation sickness in a matter of hours.   In less than a day it could kill you.
• A pure sample emits enough radiation to create significant amounts of heat.  The total decay heat is more than 100 watts per gram.
• It is chemically reactive, it forms compounds which readily dissolve in fresh and salt water.  It may be mobile in the environment, but it also may cling to materials, making decontamination of areas difficult.
• It has a high biological uptake in most of its chemical forms.
• It may be persistent in the body and has a tendency to be incorporated into bones, replacing calcium.  In such cases, it will not clear the body and has been associated with leukemia and bone cancer.

Such a substance does, in fact, exist:  radium-226.   Gram per gram it’s more toxic than plutonium-239, the isotope most common in spent fuel.   It’s a highly energetic particle emitter that does not decay to a stable isotope but rather to a long chain of other radioactive substances.   First it decays to radon-222, then to polonium-218, astatine-218, radon-218, lead-214, bismuth-214, polonium-214, thallium-210, lead-210, polonium-210 and finally lead-206, which is stable.   For this reason, a chemically pure sample will actually increase in radioactivity until it reached equilibrium with its daughter products.   Despite the relatively long half-life, it produces a great deal of radiation because for every decay of radium-226, there are decays of all the other daughters all the way down the line.  Some of these emit high energy gamma rays.   Radon poses some additional challenges.  Because it is a gas, it may not remain in place and can result in the area around a radium-226 sample accumulating potentially dangerous concentrations of radon.  The radon gas can also disperse, contaminating the area with further decay products.

Despite these dangers, radium-226 was once far more valuable than gold.  For the first half of the 20th century, radium and its decay products were the most widely used radioisotope source for any purpose that required radioactive materials.   It was used for cancer treatment, in the form of radium needles, external sources and devices that collected radon for use in irradiating tissue.  Radium was commonly used in any circumstance where calibration sources were required, with many earth geiger counters coming with a radium-based test source.   It was used in ion and moisture gauges, cold cathode vacuum tubes and combined with beryllium to produce small neutron sources.  Radium was well known for its use in radiolumonescent paints.  The paint was commonly used for clock and watch faces, allowing them to glow brightly without first having to be exposed to light.   Larger concentrations were used for aircraft instrument dials, illuminated markers and cords.  It was realized that the heat from radium could be used as a means of powering boilers or other thermal engines, but was far too expensive to ever be used in this capacity.   It also was experimented with in early “nuclear battery” designs.

Radium-226 exists in small concentrations in uranium ore.  To recover a single gram of the material, several tons of uranium ore must be processed.   Still, because the material had so many uses and was so valuable, large operations existed all over the world to produce it.   In the 1920’s, a gram of radium could cost as much as $120,000, (about 1.3 million USD in modern terms)  though the price later fell to $75,000 due to more efficient production techniques.  Radium needles could contain up to .1 grams of radium, making them worth more than ten thousand dollars.    Because of this, radium was also used as an investment commodity.  Radium needles and other radium sources were kept in bank vaults in the same way gold, silver and platinum might be kept.

Of course, radium is also pretty dangerous for the reasons mentioned above.  Its chemical properties make it prone to contaminating areas and easily absorbed into the body, where it is distributed into bones and teeth, making it an especially persistent and damaging substance.   It produces a great deal of alpha, beta and gamma radiation, which is not desirable for most situations.  Its half life is inconveniently long for applications where disposal after a period of time is expected and the production of radon can be a danger and complicate its use.  For radiolumonescent items, gamma radiation is not desirable and the energy of the alpha particles emitted by radium has a tendency to degrade the phosphorescent compounds in the paint over time.  Radium was blamed for a number of deaths and illnesses, most notably in the “radium girls,” who worked in clock factories, painting the hands and numbers of clocks with radium paint.  Some were encouraged to lick their brushes to sharpen them, resulting in ingestion of large quantities of radium.

Because of this, radium-226 fell from favor as a radiation source for most applications as soon as synthetic, reactor-generated isotopes became available.   By the 1960’s, safer, more well suited isotopes had taken over.  Radiolumonescent items used soft beta emitting isotopes like prometium-147 and tritium.  External cancer treatment or the irradiation of products used cesium-137 or cobalt-60.  Cesium-137 became the most common isotope for testing and calibration of survey equipment, and for applications that required alpha radiation, synthetically produced polonium-210 or americium-241 became the isotopes of choice.  Such isotopes produce forms of radiation more suited to their end use, rather than a hodgepodge of alpha, beta and gamma emissions of multiple energy levels.  They tend to be shorter lived, allowing for small quantities to generate sufficient radiation and reducing the problems of long term disposal.   Many are easily made into forms that are chemically inert, physically stable and not prone to dissolving in water or accumulating in organisms.

Today, radium-226 is no longer intentionally produced for its own use.   It may occasionally be used in calibration source for spectrometry and a few other scientific applications, but only in relatively small quantities.  Radium clocks and other luminescent items are still common in antique shops and are not generally considered to be a major hazard.   However, some aircraft instruments and military items are radioactive enough to make them a concern for regulators (whether this is actually necessary is another matter.)   Radium needles and therapeutic sources are unquestionably very dangerous.  They still turn up from time to time, though most have been removed from the inventories of hospitals and other locations.  Today they are treated as high level waste and must be carefully removed, isolated and disposed of at licensed facilities.  The half-life and properties of radium can make it especially challenging.

Radium also contaminates numerous areas around the world due to past activities such as refining of radium, paint production, clock manufacturing and maintenance of aircraft with radium-painted instruments.   Radium tends to be very difficult to clean up.  It can contaminate local ground water, it may cling to soil or may become mobile in the local biosphere.   Often, the only solution is to remove huge quantities of soil and transport it to an area where it can be immobilized and monitored.

What this has to do with nuclear waste:

By almost any standard, radium-226 is more toxic, more dangerous and more problematic than almost any other type of radioactive material.  Like plutonium, it will persist for thousands of years, but it’s far more toxic and more reactive.   It’s more difficult to immobilize than most substances in spent fuel and is usually in a form that is less chemically stable and contained.  Gram per gram, it produces more heat than spent fuel or most transuric elements.  Highly concentrated radium-226 makes spent fuel appear very tame.   Even compared to more concentrated waste, such as the fission products generated by reprocessing, radium-226 is still  more difficult to dispose of safely.

By the time production of radium-226 began to come to an end, in the mid 1950’s, about 2.5 kilograms had been produced worldwide. Yet that’s only a tiny proportion of what exists on earth.  Since radium-226 is natural, a decay product of uranium, huge quantities already exist on earth and always have.  There are at least fourty trillion tonnes of uranium in earth’s crust and billions of tons more dissolved in seawater.  Many times more uranium exists in the earth’s interior.   For every one tonnes of raw uranium, there exists about .143 grams of radium-226. (note:  value converted from reference in short tons).   That means that there is already 5.72 million tonnes of radium-226 in earth’s crust.

By comparison, the total world inventory of spent fuel is only 188,000 metric tonnes, although additional spent fuel is reprocessed, largely being reused, but with some remaining fission products and contaminated material for disposal.  If the slightly radioactive uranium were removed from spent fuel, more than 90% of the mass would be gone, and the material, though more radioactive, would still be less toxic, less reactive and generally less hazardous than radium-226.

The bottom line is that there’s more radium-226 in the environment we live in than spent fuel and gram per gram it’s far more dangerous.

So why is this not a problem?   Mostly because it’s not heavily concentrated in any one place.   If it were, that small area could be dangerous, but because most of the uranium on earth is distributed across the crust in relatively low concentrations, so is the radium.  This one natural isotope has always been there and yet the sky is not falling.   We all even have a fraction of a pictogram of it in our bodies.  And while I’m not suggesting spent fuel should just be dispersed across the globe or dissolved away in the world’s oceans, if it were, it would result in significantly less radioactivity than the radium-226 that is already there, which is only one of the many naturally occurring radioactive substances.

On a global scale, the hundreds of tonnes of spent fuel is just not a big deal.   We obsess about preventing it from entering the environment, but forget that the environment already has a material in it that is far more dangerous and present in much larger quantities.  If we can live in a world with that much radium-226, plutonium-239 and cesium-135 are really no big deal.

Crazy?

Well, whatever you think of Gingrich, I have no problem with this idea.  Hell, I’d love to see the country run with it.

Lets consider the precedent.  In 1961 the United States couldn’t send a man to orbit (embarrassingly, kinda like now).  By 1962 we had sent a man into orbit for a brief period of time and were still a couple years away from actually having spacecraft do precision manuvers, dock or stay aloft for more than a couple of days.   In 1968, a spacecraft with three men orbited the moon and in 1969, two men landed on the moon.

Sure, today the US government takes decades to make a decidedly non-revolutionary space capsule, but it was not always that way nor does it need to be.

Lets evaluate the steps that would be necessary to setup a lunar base:

1.  Get the components:

Well, there’s really nothing too technically demanding there.   A few pressurized modules.   Those are doable.  Aerotech ought to be able to do that.   There will also need to be extended stay facilities, which include life support systems, water recycling and so on.  All that has been done on the International Space Station and the technology is entirely off the shelf and proven.  There will need to be a communications system, again, totally off the shelf.

Power might be an issue.  The surface of the moon does receive many days of darkness, except for the poles.   A nuclear reactor would be nice, but might be difficult to get developed in the time allotted due to regulatory issues.  Big solar panels could work with ample storage to get through the darkness.  Batteries might work, but would likely be heavy.  A system to regenerate hydrogen could be much lighter, but would also be less efficient and thus require larger solar cells.

But all in all, nothing that can’t be done with current technology there.

2.  Send them to space:

The first step in getting to the moon is getting to space.   The components of the base must be sent to orbit.  There will need to be a rocket large enough to send the components and an earth departure stage to space, ideally in as few launches as possible.

We have that.  The Falcon-9 heavy can send 53 metric tons to earth orbit, which is a real lot.  It’s composed of three Falcon-9 boosters.  The Falcon Nine has been tested, although not in the heavy configuration.   It’s slated to be tested in 2013, but if we actually made it a priority to send it up sooner, it might even be possible to do so this year.

SpaceX is gearing up to start mass producing these things, so there’s no reason not to think that multiple flights could be made in a year, which would be enough to start building a respectable lunar colony.

There are even larger rockets under development.  NASA has proposed shuttle-derived launch systems, which may or may not be built.  SpaceX has also proposed the construction of even larger rockets, based on their highly successful Falcon rocket architecture.

3.  Send the stuff to the moon

Once you get the components to space they then need to be sent on a trajectory that will put them in lunar orbit.  This requires an “earth departure stage.”   The Falcon-9 heavy might be able to send the components to lunar orbit on its own, but it would be at a greatly reduced capacity.  It would be better to have an additional stage to send the components to the moon.

To achieve translunar injection, the Apollo program used the big S-IVB stage.  There’s nothing that big in the current inventory, but we don’t need a booster that big or powerful to send the components to the moon.  Since the base components would be sent on unmanned spacecraft, it’s okay if they take a bit longer than the Apollo capsules to reach the moon.  Unmanned components don’t complain about lingering in the Van Allen Belts for a while or having to spend weeks in transit to the moon.

Because of this a low energy lunar transfer would work just fine.

As it turns out we have a well proven high energy upper stage that could do the job of sending the components to the moon.  It’s the venerable Centaur.   The Centaur rocket stage should fit the bill nicely for sending the lunar colony components to lunar orbit.

4.  Land the components on the moon:

This is something which we, admittedly, don’t have any existing hardware to use.  But then again, we have built a lunar lander before, having started from a lot less and had about as much time to make it work.

What will be needed is a lander that is designed to land large components, but does not have an ascent stage, as it won’t need to return them to earth.  It also won’t need to have habitable areas, since it’s just a cargo hauler.  A spacecraft like this was conceived during the Apollo program.  The Lunar Payload Module would have been the descent stage of the Lunar Module without an ascent stage and designed for unmanned landings.   It was never built, but the concept is straightforward.

The closest thing we have to a design for a lunar lander like the Apollo Payload Module is the Altair lunar spacecraft.  It’s been through a few deign reviews and research was being conducted, but it is currently stalled.  Still, the partially designed Altair is a viable spacecraft and could probably be built in a few years if we actually had any desire to do so.

We already have most of the major components of such a lander.   Radar and remote operation systems are all off the shelf.   The RL-10 engine is a proven rocket engine that could be used for a lander powered by hydrogen and oxygen.  A simpler solution would be a hypergolic lander, using a proven engine system, such as a few AJ-10 engines, which is based on the engines used in the original Apollo Lunar Module.

So while the lander is an engineering challenge, it is nothing that can’t be done in a relatively short period of time.  Planetary landers have been designed and built in less time

5.  Send humans to the base

A lunar colony isn’t much use without some astronauts.   Landing astronauts on such a remote base would be a bit more difficult than sending the components.   The landing hardware would be pretty much the same, but a capsule would be required to transport the astronauts back to the earth and allow for reentry.  There are at least two choices for this:  the Dragon spacecraft has already been tested once and will soon be tested for a second time.  It may lack the service module capabilities necessary for trans-lunar flight, but could be upgraded.

Then there’s the Orion capsule, which NASA has been taking their sweet time developing.  An unmanned test version might launch as soon as next year (but I would not hold my breath on that one), and it should be fully capable of being used as a lunar command module.

That still leaves the issue of translunar injection.  The Centaur is not likely to have enough power to send a manned mission to the moon on a fast trajectory.  A larger version of the Centaur might be able to, or possibly a new rocket stage using the proven J-2 engine.

The Falcon 9 Heavy would not have the ability to launch this kind of mission, at least not in one shot.  Two such rockets could do it by using an earth orbit rendezvous, where one launches the spacecraft and the other the earth departure stage.  Alternatively, a larger rocket could be used, such as the proposed Space Launch System.   This will require NASA to do something it has not done in a long time – actually build the ***** rocket and not just make a bunch of artists renderings, talk about it, spend a few billion and then cancel the project a few years later.

Getting humans to the lunar surface is much the same as getting cargo there, although it also would require an ascent stage to bring the crew back to earth.  NASA’s planned Altair Lunar Lander could accomplish both and could be built with existing technology, but as of 2012, development has been put on hold.   That said, I have no doubt it could be ready to fly in a few years or less, if we actually decided to do so.

Some quick “back of napkin” calculations and considerations:

A Falcon Heavy can carry 53 metric tons to orbit.  A centaur upper stage weighs about 23 metric tons fully fueled.  A smaller upper stage could be used as the earth departure stage or the Centaur could be fired as part of the initial launch to increase payload, but that would necessitate an even lower energy orbital transfer and might be less reliable.   Thus, if the Centaur is considered the best off the shelf EDS, then that leaves 30 metric tons for the payload to lunar orbit.  The Altair Lunar Lander might be a bit too heavy for this, in its current theoretical design (it’s actually really heavy).   Something slimmed down a bit could suffice.   For example the Apollo LM Truck would have weighed only eight metric tons and could carry five metric tons to the surface.   A modernized system might be similar to two LM Trucks in tandem (two AJ-10 engines for example.)  It would weigh about sixteen metric tons and could carry about ten metric tons.  It is possible an even more capable and lighter lunar lander could be built using liquid hydrogen as the propellant or more modern engine designs.

Ten metric tons per vehicle is enough to begin to build a reasonable lunar base in just a few missions. The Spacehab module provides more than 28 cubic meters of fully pressurized habitable space, complete with experiment tracks and associated electrical systems and weighs only five metric tons. The Multipurpose Logistics Module, used to ferry pressurized cargo to the International Space Station, provides about 31 cubic meters of pressurized space and also weighs about five tons. Thus, a single mission to carry a habitation module could easily carry a habitable module of sixty cubic meters or more or could carry a module of roughly thirty cubic meters and still have capacity for other features, like airlocks, batteries and life support systems.

One problem that using such lightweight modules may cause is the lack of radiation protection during solar storms. Since radiation sheidling is heavy, it would make launching it difficult. It has been suggested that a lunar base could have ample radiation shielding if, upon arrival, astronauts filled bags with lunar soil and piled them around one of the modules to produce a heavily shielded shelter from solar storms.

SpaceX is already getting ready to mass produce their rockets, and if plans to recover and reuse the first stage work out, that could reduce costs and improve launch times even further.

Actually getting the station setup would be another issue.  Just landing the systems close together is not that much of a challenge, but interconnecting them so that they can receive power and transfer consumables might be more tricky.  It could be done by astronauts on arrival or possibly by a remote manipulator.  The easiest way might be to mount the modules on a rudimentary rover-like system.  It would not need to travel very far or move very quickly, only enough for the sections to mate.

Hypothetical Missions to Deliver Lunar Base in Ten Missions:

Mission 1: Primary power, control and communications module – Delivers a module consisting of a high gain communications system, cameras and sensors and several large arrays of solar panels and batteries and some basic remote manipulators, surveying instruments and other support equipment.  Although most power will come from a small nuclear reactor, the batteries provide for buffering of short peak power loads.

Mission 2: Nuclear power module – Aside from the lunar poles, the moon receives 14 days of darkness, during which time solar-independent power will be necessary for heating and other uses.  Batteries or regenerative fuel cells would need to be enormous for this.   A small nuclear reactor with a thermoelectric generator or sterling engine and heat radiators.  The module would also have power control systems and other support equipment.  The Safe Affordable Fission Engine is already under development and perfectly suited to this task.  Connection to other modules is achieved by small remote rovers, trailing power and communication cables, grasped by remote manipulators and automatically mated.

Mission 3: Main habitation module – 50 cubic meters of habitable space with basic electrical and ventilation systems.  Mission module is unloaded to lunar surface from the lunar delivery module with a crane like device or perhaps a ramp.

Mission 4: Service, habitation and life support module I – Additional habitable space, life support systems, water recycling systems, carbon dioxide scrubbers.   Module is unloaded from the lander by a crane or ramps.  Also has wheeled delivery system, based on lunar rovers used during Apollo.  Allows lander to land a short distance from the main module and to travel to the main habitation module to dock.

Mission 5: Service, habitation and life support module II – Similar to mission 5 and carries additional life support and recycling equipment.  Allows for full redundancy of all systems.  Also lands nearby and uses a rover to dock with the base.

Mission 6: Surface science module – pressurized module with airlock, allowing for access to lunar surface. Also contains experimental space for lunar experiments. External connections and racks for unpressurized experiments.

Mission 7: Secondary habitation and science module – another 20-30 cubic meters of living area, primarily designated for experimental equipment.  Also uses a rover to dock.  Contains additional equipment such as space suit maintenance, basic medical equipment.

Mission 8: Provisions and supplies mission – lands near lunar base with a pallet containing large tanks of oxygen, dehydrated or canned food, two or more tonnes of water, other basic supplies such as sanitary supplies, replacement parts, such as bolts and screws and other consumables.

Mission 9: Similar to mission 8.  A total of about twenty tonnes of water, food, oxygen and other supplies allows for a greatly extended stay on the moon, should such a contingency be necessary, as might be the case if it became impossible to lift off due to a spacecraft failure, requiring a “rescue” mission.  This mission might also carry some exploration equipment, such as one or more lunar rovers.

Mission 10 - First crewed mission, also includes some additional equipment and consumables.

The lunar outpost could be expanded in the future as needed.

Is it doable?

I think so.   The Falcon Heavy is expected to cost about $80 to $125 million, though perhaps less if many missions are done with the same rocket type.   The Centaur costs about $23 million. The cost of a lunar lander is anyone’s guess, but if produced in a large production run, I don’t see any reason why it would need to be more than $100 million. The original Apollo Lunar Module cost about $50 million, which would be about $200 million in today’s dollars, but that is considering that it also included the habitable ascent module and that it was the first of its kind and needed to be developed entirely from scratch. It also was limited to a production run of ten units. The hardware might cost an additional $50 to $250 million per mission. There would be additional costs per mission due to control and other expenses, but all in all it could be done for under one billion dollars per mission, if costs were kept under control.

One billion dollars per mission is not impossibly expensive for the US Space program. The Space Shuttle was estimated to cost upwards of one billion dollars for each mission, though it varied greatly depending on the nature of the mission. NASA claims the official cost per Shuttle launch to be about $450 million, but that does not include the special hardware that was developed and used for each mission. Although initial hopes for the Space Shuttle were to have upwards of fifty launches per year, the most ever launched in one year was nine. During the height of the shuttle program, around four to six missions occurred per year, and the budget for the program was upwards of six billion dollars.

In such a context, the prospect of building a lunar base, using largely existing hardware does not seem to be impossibly expensive, at least if initial costs are kept down. NASA has become notoriously inefficient at getting things going and moving from paper studies to real spacecraft in a reasonably inexpensive and rapid manner, but if this could be overcome, there’s no reason to think the program cost could not be kept under fifteen to twenty billion dollars, including the delivery of humans to the lunar base. If it were spread out over a few years, that would be entirely affordable.

Sadly, it’s not going to happen…

For whatever you think of Newt Gingrich, there’s one thing I respect about the man.  He’s the only candidate out there who is actually proposing the kind of ambitious, big science program that could get the nation excited again about science and move to a new level of capability.   It’s not going to happen, because at this point the bureaucracy of the US government is just not capable of doing such a thing and because politicians seem to have a lot of trouble actually making a program with a real goal happen.   There’s not a lot of support for such proposals in general.

In my opinion, this is exactly what the country needs.  It needs a goal to focus on and a way to restore national pride and excitement about science.  Such bold ideas should be proposed and they should be made to happen.  Sending a man to the moon in 1969 should not be allowed to stand as the crowning achievement of the United States.  We need to have the will to repeat and then overtake our best accomplishments to keep pushing progress forward.

It’s a rundown of some of the more interesting incidents of mass hysteria, where numerous people began to manifest symptoms based entirely on their belief that something existed when it didn’t. It’s actually more common than one might think. History is littered with examples of whole populations erupting in uncontrollable laughter, people believing they could not breathe and thus passing out, men panicking that their penises were retracting into their bodies or the female equivalent, where women believe their reproductive tracts are closing up. In some cases, individuals have injured themselves in an attempt to stop the fictional condition from progressing.

Never put 100% trust in anyone, not even yourself!