Helsinki/Finland, January 11, 2012-Epidemiological studies are given the most weight in evaluation of human health effects. Therefore, when researchers started their effort to find out whether cell phone radiation causes brain cancer, epidemiology was given the most of attention – and the most funding.

Well… yes, since Epidemology is the study of health events, disease patterns, health statistics and disease rates and their relation to factors like environment, lifestyle and other causes, it would seem to be the field of study that would apply to such a question.

It’s as straight forward as determining that geology is the appropriate field of science to look to when trying to determine the characteristics of a rock.

However, and please let me play “devils advocate”,

Only if I can play with science advocate.

is the epidemiology overrated?

No.

There, are we done?

Will epidemiology ever give us reliable answers concerning cell phone radiation and brain cancer?

Yes, and they have. Or is it simply that you don’t like the answer and want it to be something else, therefore you consider it flawed?

In 2010 and in 2011, two of the largest epidemiological studies on brain cancer were published. It appears that the time and money were used generously,

There’s a lot of interest in the topic, so a lot went into it. I’m not certain which studies you mean, but there have been some enormous ones recently.

but the studies failed to provide reliable answers concerning cell phones radiation and brain cancer. Flaws in the design of both studies prevented delivering conclusive answers.

Really? Well, if you say so. But thankfully, we don’t have to rely on any two studies. Two studies don’t mean much in the world of epidemiology anyway. To actually get a conclusive answer, you need to have confirming data coming from many studies. In this case we’re lucky enough to have literally thousands. So, you could actually discard two of them if you so choose and it won’t change the balance of the evidence much, because there’s such a huge amount from other sources.

It was 1999 when the largest case-control epidemiological study, INTERPHONE, was planned. At that time, optimists hoped that by the end of this project in 2004 we would know whether cell phone radiation causes brain cancer.

Actually, I think we had a pretty good idea even back in 1999, so it doesn’t seem very optimistic to think we would by 2004. That would be like me predicting that in the year 2017 we’ll know that the earth revolves around the sun. Unless there’s some kind of complete collapse of civilization that leaves behind only a handful of completely uneducated people, I am pretty sure we will know that in 2017, since we do already know it now.

I think I see where this is going though. The Interphone study was supposed to be one of the largest studies of this type and would dispel the doubt forever. It pretty much did.

After several delays, INTERPHONE published the results of the glioma brain cancer study in 2010.

The results were confusing, to say the least. Use of the cell phone for less than 10 years seemed to have a “protective” effect, whereas the use of the cell phone for more than 10 years showed a small increase in glioma occurrence.

Well I agree on one thing: The study abstract didn’t do a very good job of putting this all in context. It might simply be that research scientists are very apprehensive about using absolutes and tend to talk in degree of confidence. The tiny increase in giloma, but only in certain subsets was almost certainly statistical noise. It was miniscule. The “protective” effect can be attributed to a combination of statistical noise and possibly some slight confounding factors.

The balance of the data provides pretty good confirmation of no overall risk increase. Again, this should have been made more clear. The problem largely stems from having non scientifically literate persons get involved in the reporting. Reports and public officials have a tendency to focus on very narrow portions of a study like this and take them out of context. They will generally then demand to know whether the researchers can be 100% confident that this is not in fact a risk effect. The answer to that question is always no, statistical analysis never regards anything as being 100% certain. Then the study gets reported as if it raised doubts, when it actually does not.

Several problems with the design of INTERPHONE were debated. By design, the INTERPHONE study was unable to detect brain cancer induced by cell phone radiation because of its long (over 10 years) latency period.

Okay, that might be the case, but plenty of other studies did look at longer latency periods. A few went so far as to track down some of the early adopters of cell phones who started using them frequently in the early 1980’s and they also found no increase in brain cancer.

That said, even if the AVERAGE latency period were something like twenty or thirty years, it’s hard for me to imagine that there could be a bell curve so narrow as to have zero detectable risk increase after a much shorter period of time.

At the time of execution of INTERPHONE (2000-2004), cell phones were in common use for only a few years. There would be not enough time for the development and diagnosis of brain cancer if it was caused by cell phone radiation.

It does not matter how common they were by the early 2000’s. The fact of the matter is that they have existed since the late 1970’s and they have been used by many people since then. Sure, the actual proportion of the population that began using cell phones a lot in the early 1980’s is small, but it’s still more than large enough to produce good study results.

It’s not even really a cell phone issue. Wireless phones are just UHF/Microwave transmitters and those have been around for ages. There are studies that have been done on others exposed much longer. Police officers started using radar guns in the late 1950’s to measure the speed of motorists and some cops spent thirty years working highway patrol with a radar gun in their car. Others spent their careers as microwave technicians for AT&T or television networks. Military personnel worked on the deck of ships with radar antennas energized nearby.

Studies have been done on these individuals. Many of them, in fact. The results are consistent and compelling: The only health effects ever detected are acute thermal injuries and no chronic effect of exposure to RF fields has ever been documented.

However, there was an even more important design flaw. The information about the extent of exposures to cell phone radiation was based on individual recollection of the subjects in the study. The study subjects were asked about their history of using cell phone, including how long and how many phone calls they made in the past.

Perhaps in this study, but not in all. While it may introduce a potential source of error, I’m hard pressed to see how this could possibly skew the studies that badly. Even if you rely on spotty recollection, the fact that people who reported being heavy phone users show no greater cancer risks than those who never owned a cell phone at all would seem to be pretty hard to mess up.

By the way: Studies on cigarette smoking and cancer have largely been based on the subject’s recollection of how many packs they usually smoked a day. Despite this, they had no problem picking up on the fact that tobacco causes lung cancer.

It is a very unreliable method. Who of us remembers how many and how long calls made a few days ago? The study subjects were asked to recall cell phone use up to ten years before the study.

Okay, lets see if I can do this…

Got my first cell phone in the summer of 2001. Before that I had used cell phones a bit, but only occasionally when on that belonged to someone else. I worked for a company that sold cell phones so I had a good plan with a discount. Consequently, I used it a good few minutes a day or more. I would say my use has generally been on the increase since then, although not always. I’ve generally made or received three or four calls per day, usually each one only being a few minutes. Occasionally I have longer calls. In 2004 and 2005 I had a job that had me on the road a lot and my usage went up to about a dozen calls a day, but mostly short. As it stands now I use about 180 minutes of talk time in a month, but occasionally one or two long calls can push that way up. That’s how it’s been for the past few years.

Good enough?

Therefore, by design, INTERPHONE compared reliable information concerning diagnosed cancers with entirely unreliable information about exposures. Such kind of comparison can not produce reliable result, as was seen in the confusing results of the study published by INTERPHONE in 2010.

Again, you’re presuming that this error is so great that it would make someone who has never owned a cell phone indistinguishable in risk from someone who says they’ve been a heavy cell phone user for the past ten years. That just does not make sense. Even if recollection skewed the data, it shouldn’t so enough to cause that kind of discrepancy.

In 2011, the Danish Cohort published another largest study, evaluated in this column in December 2011.

Similarly to INTERPHONE, the Danish Cohort compared reliable information on diagnosed brain cancers with the absolutely unreliable information about exposures based not on the use of cell phone but on the length of subscription with the network operator.

No. That’s actually perfectly reasonable. It stands to reason that a person who has a cell phone contract and owns a cell phone will be more prone to using a cell phone than one who does not. This is even more true in the early years. In 1983, a handheld cell phone cost about four thousand US dollars. Anyone who pays that much for something obviously has reason to do so. For example, real estate agents were some of the first to embrace the technology, because even given the high cost, they needed to make appointments while traveling between properties.

It might be imperfect in that some cell phone owners will use it more than others, but a cell phone owner will always use it more than one who does not own a cell phone.

The study also contaminated the control group with the cell phone users.

The study looked at the habits of long term user as compared to the general population and to groups of similar demographic profiles. Some of those included those who had used a cell phone as well, but didn’t you just assert that it would not matter since the latency period is very long? In any case, it’s all but impossible to find a large group these days which has never owned a cell phone. So the study compared long term cell phone users to those who either had recently acquired a cell phone, never owned a cell phone or had been very light user. The study actually looked at the groups using more than one method. It examined it based on the length of the phone ownership, the average usage of the phone, the reported habits etc.

In all cases, no coloration to increases in brain cancer was ever detected.

Again, as with the INTERPHONE, the Danish Cohort made comparison of reliable data on cancer with the unreliable information about exposures cannot produce reliable final result.

And what the hell would you consider to be reliable data?

Brain cancer is a rare disease, somewhat in the range of around 10 cases per 100,000 people. It means that in order to reliably detect the change, which seems to be less than 50% according to flawed INTERPHONE, tens of thousands of the study subjects should be analyzed. This is very expensive but not necessarily productive.

It’s actually not quite that rare. In fact, it’s about twice as common as cited.

But regardless, the fact is that if the probability of brain cancer were increased by using a cell phone, it would be easy to detect if that probability increase were large. In other words, if it increased the risk from, 22 per 100,000 people to 23 per 100,000 people, that would be very hard to find and a massive sample would be needed. On the other hand, if it increased it from 22 per 100,000 people to 100 per 100,000 people, that would be easy to detect and would stand out from the statistical noise in even a modest study.

Therefore, what we can say from these studies, without doubt, is that while it is impossible to rule out the possibility that there is an increased risk, it must be vanishingly small, if it does exist, because otherwise it would have been easily detected.

As shown by the experiences with INTERPHONE and Danish Cohort, large amounts of money (tens of millions of Euros) and ample amounts of time (over 10 years) were used and no reliable answers received.

No, we have reliable answers. They’re just not the ones you want.

In the current situation, with the above presented experience, should the epidemiology be the first kind of studies to use our scarce research resources? Epidemiology is very expensive and takes a very long time to get results. Any flaw in the study design sets us back by ten or more years.

Well I agree in so much as there’s no point in throwing more money at this. We have plenty of data. The jury is not out. The questions have been answered. It’s time to consider spending money on things we don’t know.

Would we be we better off using the available funding for the human studies examining acute effects of cell phone radiation on physiology? This would, of course, include studies of the known molecular events leading to initiation and development of cancer. We still do not know if cell phone radiation triggers any such events in living humans.

We’ve actually done that too.

And as far as molecular events that lead to initiation and development of cancer, those are not observed with microwaves. No mechanism by which that could happen has ever been discovered, despite more than a century of study of RF fields and electromagnetic radiation.

Performing physiological studies on volunteer will provide information whether any known carcinogenic events are triggered by cell phone radiation. Depending on the result, we could act immediately by imposing preventive measures based on scientific evidence.

Yes, we have done that. We’ve done it on humans. We’ve done it on animals. We’ve done it on live tissue cultures. We’ve done it on chemical systems that mimic what goes on in cells.

To provide such information, epidemiology will still need tens of years before it is able to perform effective studies, assuming that studies will be designed without any major flaws. Volunteer studies examining physiology and pro-carcinogenetic events would provide information much faster.

It’s been done. At some point it becomes time to give up on the existence of something which has been studied for so long and has not been determined to exist.

In this time of scarce resources, we need to make choices how to obtain, most reliably and expeditiously, information about the possible effect of cell phone radiation on brain cancer.

Based on the experience of the last 10-15 years, epidemiology does not seem to be the method of choice.

Well, compared to an assclown with an ax to grind and a desire to be in the newspaper, it actually does pretty well.

Remote areas of Alaska are off the wider electrical grid and are far from natural gas pipelines or railways to deliver coal.   Heat may be provided, at least in part, by wood burning stoves that can use local fuel, although wood supplies may also be limited.   However, by far the most important source of energy is oil.   Diesel oil is the only way for these communities to generate electricity and provides most of the heat.   Petroleum also powers local transportation and powers the vital systems of the communities, either directly or by generating electricity.   Communications, drinking water wells, sanitary systems, heat and lighting all require energy provided by oil.

These communities use a lot of oil, and although they may have large storage tanks, the energy density of petroleum means that they can’t go very long without replenishment.   Getting the supplies to these communities is never a sure thing.   When it does arrive it’s expensive and it’s rapidly becoming more expensive as petroleum prices go up.  Due to both the costs of oil as a commodity and the difficulty in delivering it, the final cost can be upwards of ten US dollars a gallon when it is delivered.

Via NPR:

Ultra-Harsh Alaska Winter Prompts Fuel Shortages

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Living in Alaska’s outer reaches is challenging enough, given the isolation and weather extremes, but at least three remote communities also have experienced weather-related late deliveries of fuel so crucial to their survival during an especially bitter winter.

The iced-in town of Nome and the northwest Inupiat Eskimo villages of Noatak and Kobuk faced fuel shortages that illustrate the vulnerability of relying solely on deliveries by sea or air, potentially subjecting communities to the mercy of the elements. The villages, which just received their fuel, are especially vulnerable, unable to afford more additional storage tanks for gasoline and heating oil, which can run as high as $10 a gallon.

Compounding a problem with no easy answers, temperatures dipping as low as minus 60 over the past few weeks means air deliveries are delayed at the same time people are consuming more fuel more quickly. Some people in both villages also use wood-burning stoves for supplemental heat, but diesel is the critical commodity.

“It’s been pretty tough,” Noatak resident Robbie Kirk said of life in the community of 500, which finally received a fuel delivery on Tuesday, three days after the village store ran out of heating oil. “We usually have a nice reserve of fuel. Now we’re just playing catch-up.”

Nome missed its pre-winter delivery of fuel by barge when a huge storm swept western Alaska. In a high-profile journey, a Coast Guard icebreaker is cutting path in thick sea ice for a Russian tanker delivering 1.3 million gallons of fuel to the community of 3,500.

Without a fuel delivery, Nome would likely run out of certain petroleum products before the end of winter and a barge delivery becomes possible in late spring.

Until recently, the situation was much more dire for the smaller communities of Noatak and Kobuk, located farther north above the Arctic Circle, where relentless extreme cold prevented fuel deliveries by plane until this week, residents say.

Before the new supply of fuel arrived in Noatak, the village store borrowed some heating oil from the village water and sewer plant, said store manager Connie Walton. But filling the store’s two 23,000-gallon tanks has diverted any potential crisis.

“We’re good for another month and a half,” Walton said.

Residents in Kobuk also were highly relieved by an air shipment of heating oil that arrived Wednesday in the village of 150 people about 175 miles to the east. It’s been too cold for people to use their snowmobiles much, so gasoline isn’t as much of a concern, said City Clerk Sophia Ward. Running low on the diesel used to warm homes was another matter.

“I’m glad that it came in today,” Ward said Wednesday. “It’ll keep our elders warm.”

In Noatak, residents once had fuel shipped by barge on the Noatak River, but that has long been impossible since the river shifted and became shallow there.

Two years ago, residents began tapping into another source of fuel, thanks to the Red Dog zinc mine 40 miles to the northeast. The mine in 2009 began a program to sell gasoline and diesel to Noatak and another close neighbor, the village of Kivalina. The fuel is sold at cost, said mine spokesman Wayne Hall.

“This is strictly for what we can do to help out our closest community members,” he said. “Energy and heating costs are one of the biggest costs to families in this region.”

The program lets individuals buy fuel on Saturdays every three weeks at a staging area about 23 miles from the village. This winter, they can buy gas in 55-gallon drums calculated at $4.89 a gallon. Villagers also bring their own drums to fill with diesel fuel at $4.35 a gallon.

The latest Red Dog fuel day for Noatak took place on the day the village store ran out of diesel. So villagers formed a convoy of about 30 snowmobiles and freight sleds, and headed out in weather marked by temperatures of 47 below and, for the first 10 miles, dense fog, said Kirk, who regularly takes advantage of the sales.

“It basically cuts my heating fuel in half,” he said. “It’s pretty critical for me.”

The state also helps lower the soaring cost of electricity in Alaska’s rural areas, spending almost $32 million in fiscal year 2011 through its Power Cost Equalization program, which subsidizes residential electric rates and the power bills of community buildings. Power in most villages is diesel-generated.

With so many scattered settlements of a few hundred or less, the logistics of keeping them all supplied is daunting. The very fact that oil would be brought in by air should drive home just how difficult and expensive an operation this is. Even when the system works and fuel and electricity are available, it’s always extremely expensive. The cost may be offset by subsidies, but that only shifts the burden to the government and tax payers. Ultimately, there’s no getting around the fact that getting hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel to remote settlements is a costly undertaking.

There is, however, another option, which could provide these isolated communities with highly reliable and economical electricity and heat regardless of the weather they are experiencing. In recent years, a number of small modular nuclear reactor designs have been proposed. These are sometimes described as “nuclear batteries,” although the name is deceptive. They’re not batteries in the traditional sense, but rather are encapsulated fission reactors, designed to provide power for extended periods of time with minimal maintenance and upkeep. Refueling intervals may be years or decades. The idea that the reactor is a kind of “black box” that simply sits on site and provides energy.

While none of these reactors have been built, all are entirely possible with current technology. The biggest problem is not technical or safety issues but regulatory problems. In the US, all nuclear power reactors, regardless of size, face the same regulatory framework. A ten megawatt reactor must go through the same level of licensing, site studies and inspections as a 1700 megawatt reactor. It must carry the same level of insurance and have the same safety systems and evacuation plans. These regulatory requirements alone can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Some examples of small modular nuclear reactors:

• The Toshiba 4S – A small nuclear reactor capable of producing ten megawatts of electricity and also capable of being used for district heating.   The 4S is intended to be built underground a 30 meter deep shaft.   The reactor is sodium-cooled, although a version with lead coolant has also been considered.  It would provide maintenance-free energy for about thirty years, after which the core would be allowed to cool for a year and then be replaced.   A pilot plant has been proposed for construction in Galena, Alaska and has generally been well received by the local population.  With a population of only 612, the 4S would provide ample power to keep Gelena warm and electrified during the worst winters.   Construction remains delayed because of regulatory issues.   If the Gelena plant ever does get built, it is hoped it would provide a prototype for more reactors of this type in the near future.
• SSTAR – The SSTAR is a lead cooled nuclear reactor which would be constructed off site and delivered as a fully self-contained unit and used until in place until the end of the units lifespan, at which point it would be replaced.   It’s currently under development by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  Initial plans were to have a prototype operating by 2015, but there have been few recent updates on the progress of the program.  The SSTAR is expected to be capable of generating ten to one hundred megawatts of electricity, depending on the size of the unit.   The unit would have a thirty year lifespan.
• Hyperon Power Systems Reactor – Hyperon is a privately held company which has been working to develop and market a small, self-contained prefabricated nuclear power reactor for several years.  The initial proposal was to use a self-regulating uranium hydrate reactor.  Hyperon had claimed that this would be rapidly deployed as the technology had already been proven in numerous TRIGA reactors.  In 2009, the company announced that they were shelving the uranium hydrate design in favor of a lead-cooled fast reactor, citing difficulties in getting approval for the uranium hydrate reactor and delays in development.  However, the company has also indicated it may continue to move forward with the earlier reactor design as well.  The company indicated that it would begin shipments in 2013, but it’s not entirely clear whether this will actually happen.  The proposed reactors, if they are ever built, are expected to produce about 25 megawatts of electricity and have a lifespan of up to a few decades.
• Adams Atomic Engine – A design pioneered by our good friend and fellow nuclear energy supporter, Rod Adams.  The Adams Atomic Engine is a gas cooled pebble-bed reactor.  It would be created as a self-contained unit and available in a number of sizes and configurations, depending on the end use.   The Adams Engine would use nitrogen as the coolant and a closed-cycle gas turbine to generate mechanical power for electrical generation or marine propulsion.   A similar reactor, the ML-1, was designed and constructed by the US Army in 1963, but the design never made it past the prototype phase.  The Adams Engine would have a number of differences from the ML-1 thus avoiding most of the problems experienced by the ML-1 prototype.

There are only a few of the types of small, self-contained reactors intended for sights like the remote villages in Alaska.  There are others.  Many are liquid metal cooled and others are gas cooled and pebble bed type reactors.  a few small self-contained light water reactors exist too, such as the mPower reactor being developed by Babcock and Wilcox.   In general, the light water variety tend to be larger and, due to the lower burn up of light water reactors, they do not have as long a core lifespan and therefore do not allow for the reactor to be left in place for many years without refueling or maintenance.  

Molten salt reactors are also an excellent choice for small reactors with limited maintenance and extended refueling lifespans.   Because molten salt reactors can achieve very high burnup, they do not need frequent refueling and do not require large on sight spent fuel storage.   The passive safety of molten salt reactors is another important advantage as well as the fact that they can operate at very high temperatures, allowing for small modular gas turbine power conversion systems.   Flibe Energy is a venture aimed at marketing such reactors.

Assuming the regulatory hurdles could be cleared, these types of reactors offer vast benefits that could liberate areas of the world from reliance on expensive oil, transported long distances and requiring continuous resupply.

Some areas with constant energy supply issues that could benefit from a nuclear reactor (to name a few):

• Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station
• McMurdo Station (had one briefly)
• Scott Base
• Palmer Station
• Bellingshausen Station
• Thule Air Force Base
• Diego Garcia
• Guam
• Ascension Island
• Saint Helena
• Guantánamo Bay
• Kwajalein Atoll
• Wake Island
• Yellowknife
• Red Dog Mine
• Nome
• Prudhoe Bay
• Eareckson Air Station
• Numerous Islands in the Caribbean

Shooting down an ICBM has always been an extremely challenging problem.  There is very little time to react to the missile and they travel at extreme speed.   The distances involved are enormous and because an interceptor must also travel at extreme speed, it can easily shoot right past the target.  This is made even more difficult by the fact that modern missiles have penetration aids and decoys that are hard to distinguish from the actual warhead.  Some also have the ability to maneuver and change course, making it difficult to plot an interception point.  The earliest systems addressed this in a simplistic, though likely effective way:  They would try to destroy the incoming warhead with a massive nuclear explosion.  For example, the Spartan missile carried a five megaton radiation-enhanced warhead that could destroy incoming missiles at a distance of 50 kilometers.   Another missile, the Sprint, used a much smaller explosive and was intended as a last line of defense for warheads that were entering their terminal phase.

Such systems, however, quickly fell from favor for a number of reasons.   For one, the massive blasts associated with them could have some catastrophic effects on the ionosphere and satellites in the area.  While this may have been considered preferable to absorbing an attack with nuclear missiles, it was still a major concern.   The use of high power nuclear explosives was also considered politically impalpable and the prospect of hundreds of nuclear-armed interceptors alarmed the Soviet Union.   The Soviets responded by designing new warheads that were radiation hardened and could withstand blasts up to as close as a few hundred meters.   They also threatened to build up their arsenal of nuclear missiles to include a large enough number to simply overwhelm any defense system

In the end, the US and Soviets both signed treaties to limit such weapons.   The US system, known as Safeguard, was only operational for a few months before being shutdown.   A similar Soviet system was dramatically scaled back and eventually had its nuclear warheads replaced with conventional explosives.

Today there are some interceptor systems that use missiles to intercept ICBM’s, although their effectiveness is somewhat limited.   One of the most notable is the US Aegis anti ballistic missile system. It’s quite effective against single warhead missiles that lack penetration aids and advanced features, but the effectiveness against a barrage of modern ICBM’s is questionable.

A separate approach developed in the 1980’s and focused on the use of directed energy weapons, especially lasers.   These would have a number of advantages over interceptor missiles.  They would be able to engage the target almost instantly and could track a fast moving and maneuvering target in ways that a physical interceptor never could.  The Strategic Defense Initiative was a program initiated by the Regan administration in the early 1980’s.   It studied a number of methods of intercepting missiles and warheads but focused especially on the use of high power lasers.   President Regan would say that one reason for pushing the program was the realization that even a single nuclear missile, perhaps launched by error, could not be stopped and would inevitably trigger a nuclear war.   Therefore, the ability to shoot down a missile quickly and effectively would be an important capability to help preserve world peace.

Whatever the motivation, the Strategic Defense Initiative had decidedly mixed results.  Huge amounts of money were expended and great strides were made in the development of high power lasers and remote sensing systems.   High speed interceptors were developed which eventually were incorporated into THAAD and the Aegis system.   High powered chemical lasers were developed and demonstrated to be capable of blinding satellites and tracking missiles, but showed limited potential against actual missile threats.   A few tests were conducted that showed the lasers could destroy the bodies of missiles, but this was generally limited to fairly thin-walled liquid fueled missiles, which were largely obsolete by the time.

The YAL-1:

After the close of the program in the early 1990’s, some attempts were made to find applications for the technology.   One was the YAL-1.  The YAL-1 is an attempt to make one of the huge chemical lasers developed for SDI into a viable weapon.   The mission of the YAL-1 is to shoot down ballistic missiles during the boost phase. This is a very short period of time during which the missile is just leaving the launch site on course for its target. It would be the ideal time to shoot down a missile, since it would avoid contamination of friendly areas with any materials on the missile and provide the quickest response to the threat.

The YAL-1 is a heavily modified Boeing 747-400, which has been used to house the massive laser.   The system is much more complicated than just cutting off the nose of a 747 and sticking a big laser in it, of course.   It involves a very precise system of tracking lasers, steering optics, sensors and support systems as well as the laser itself.   Engaging a target involves the use of a complex array of targeting optics and tracking lasers, which follow and illuminate the target.  Once acquired and tracked, the primary laser is fired through a stabilized turret containing adaptive optics which compensate for beam distortion caused by the atmosphere.

The laser used is itself a complex piece of equipment. A chemical oxygen iodine laser, it gets its power from a chemical reaction that produces an excited laser medium. The laser is fed by a combination of chlorine, iodine, hydrogen peroxide and potassium hydroxide. These highly toxic and reactive chemicals are stored on the aircraft in corosion-resistant tanks. The byproducts of the reaction are discharged by a specialized exhaust system.

Now I have to admit, a massive flying laser is pretty damn cool and I’d love to have one to shoot at various things with, but the program has not been cheap. It was started in the mid 1990’s and didn’t actually reach the point of being able to test fire the laser in flight until earlier this year. During that time, it has cost tax payers more than 5.2 billion dollars.

Worse, it has a number of major problems that may well doom the plane from using its laser to do anything more than obliterate taxpayer money.
The Effectiveness Is, At Best, Questionable – Despite what you may see in sci-fi films, lasers are not the ultimate in destructive weaponry.   A laser of the type in the YAL-1 only heats the surface of a missile and attempts to weaken the skin to the point where the physical stresses on the missile fail.   This is much easier with older liquid fueled missiles, which often have thin aluminum tanks which could rupture relatively easily.  Solid fueled missiles are much tougher.   A design goal of the YAL-1 has been to engage solid fueled missiles at a range of 300 km, but it’s not clear if it can achieve this.Even if it does, it’s possible to make a missile resistant to laser weapons.  Ablative coatings or shields can prevent the heat from compromising the missile’s structure, and using a highly polished material around the tanks can be a very effective means of simply reflecting most of the laser beam away.  Other relatively simple counter measures could be employed by a savy enemy.  For example, they could launch a barrage of several decoy missiles, perhaps only having small first-stage engines and no warhead, simply to draw fire from the YAL-1 and depleted the limited reserves of laser chemicals stored on-board.

It Has Limited Range – 300 kilometers is not a huge distance, assuming it can even work at that distance.   In order to be effective, the YAL-1 would have to be orbiting in the area in the immediate vicinity of the launcher.  Even in the best circumstances, it will need to be a few hundred kilometers from the missile launch.   If it were to defend against missiles from Iran, for example, it would have to fly within Iran’s airspace.That pretty much means that the airspace around the launcher would have to already be under the control of the US Air Force and that overflying the area was already permitted.  If that is the case, then why even bother with the YAL-1?   The easier and preferred method of preventing missile launches is to destroy the launchers on the ground before they get a chance to fire.  While they can sometimes be camouflaged, a system of good reconciles and rapid strike aircraft can be very effective in making sure none ever get the chance to launch.

We Only Have One and That’s Not Enough -If you want to be able to effectively suppress missiles being fired from an area, then you will need to blanket that area on a consistent basis.  In other words, you need at least one and ideally several YAL-1 aircraft constantly orbiting.   If you ever give the enemy a chance to launch while the aircraft is not patrolling, that is when they’ll fire their missiles.   It’s rather difficult to hide the presence of something as big and unstealthy as a Boeing 747.   Like all aircraft, the YAL-1 has limited endurance.  It can remain aloft for a while using in-flight refueling, but eventually the crew will need more food, the engines will need to be inspected and the aircraft will need to land.   If it fires the laser at all, this could happen even faster.   The on-board chemical tanks only have enough material for about 20 shots at most, and it must land to have the laser system refueled.

Realistically, to have a viable force to actually suppress missiles being fired from even a small region of the world, at least ten of these aircraft would be required.  That is in addition to the other aircraft needed to keep the big 747 fueled and secure.  Each plane is estimated to cost about one hundred million US dollars to operate each year and has a capital cost of about one and a half billion dollars.   In other words, the project cost is going to be at least fifteen billion dollars and cost over a billion dollars annually to operate.

To add to the problem, the facilities, chemicals and equipment needed to service the YAL-1 is unique to only this aircraft and would not be available at most air bases.  It would either have to be brought to the area of operation or the aircraft would have to fly all the way back to the United States every time it needed to be reloaded with chemicals or serviced.

It Has Limited Capabilities Beyond Shooting Down Ballistic Missiles – If you are going to spend such an enormous amount of money on a weapons system, it would seem logical to want to be able to use it in more than the most narrow of circumstances.  Most ballistic missile interceptors are designed to also have the capability to engage aircraft or even satellites.   Few aircraft in the US Air Force inventory are good for only one very narrow and relatively rare mission.   Unfortunately, that would seem to be the case with the YAL-1.  It could, at least in principle, be used against enemy fighter or bomber aircraft, although the effectiveness is unknown and the range would be considerably less than many existing and highly effective surface to air or air to air missiles.

It’s  not considered to be a very good platform for attacking ground targets.   The thicker atmosphere at low altitudes tends to absorb the infrared laser light, severely limiting range and effectiveness.The laser could be modified to engage ground targets, but range would be reduced because more energy is absorbed by the atmosphere at lower altitudes.   And while some targets would be susceptible, hardened structures like bunkers or concert structures would be all but impervious to a laser weapon.   It  would also be many times more expensive than attacks using more conventional methods like guided bombs.  Since the YAL-1 was not intended to engage ground targets, there would need to be some modification to the tracking systems of the aircraft.

The Technology May Already Be On the Verge Of Obsolescence – Chemical lasers like the one used by the YAL-1 remain of interest for military purposes because they can generate a huge amount of laser energy from reserves of chemicals, without the need for large amounts of electrical power.   However, in recent years, advancements in battery technology and solid state lasers have started to challenge the capabilities of chemical laser systems.  Chemical lasers are limited to the number of firings by the chemical reserves on hand.  Refueling of the laser can be complex due to the precautions needed when handling the highly reactive chemicals involved.  They also require complex systems for chemical storage and delivery.

The availability of low cost, light weight lithium ion batteries and highly efficient solid state lasers is beginning to make it possible to achieve sufficient power from lasers that avoid the problems inherent to chemical lasers.  Already smaller solid state laser systems are appearing on the battlefield.  These systems are powered by generators with battery banks used to provide the brief pulses of extremely high power needed for the lasers.    For the time being, chemical lasers still seem to have the edge for super high power applications like the YAL-1, but solid state laser systems are progressing rapidly and may become the choice for applications of this power level in the near future.  In such an application, an APU and battery bank would take the place of the huge and hazardous chemical tanks.

Now, the big question:  What do we do with this thing?

Developing and building the YAL-1 has taken a huge amount of national treasure.   It is undoubtedly one of the most unique aircraft in the world, with capabilities no other has and technology that represents the cutting edge of laser weaponry.  Considering how much has been put into this thing, there must be something useful that can be done with it.

It could certainly be used for some research applications.  Testing a laser of this wavelength at various altitudes and conditions, determining the ability of various weapons to survive attack by a high energy laser is another application.  It might even be useful for certain atmospheric and meteorological research or in using lasers as part of a space propulsion system.  However, most of these could be done much more easily and at a lower cost in the laboratory or on the ground.  The amount of money spent would hardly be worth it if the YAL-1 only sees use as a very limited application scientific experiment platform.

As a weapon or defensive system, the YAL-1, realistic uses are harder to think of.   A fleet of ten of these is just not going to happen given the cost.  It’s possible one or two more might be built, if a viable use could be found for such a small fleet.

About the best I can think of would be to retain the anti-ballistic capability, but with the understanding that it will be pretty limited in coverage and to make the modifications necessary for engage targets on the ground.  For ground targeting, the YAL-1 could be useful for destroying targets where extreme levels of precision are required, far beyond what could be achieved with even the best guided bombs and missiles.  This might work for targeted assassinations of enemy leaders or if a vital target like a communications exchange is located right near a hospital or school.

But damn, that’s a lot of money for a weapon with no real deterrent value and little chance we’ll ever use.

Via HealthCanal:

New Take on Impacts of Low Dose Radiation
Berkeley Lab Researchers Find Evidence Suggesting Risk May Not Be Proportional to Dose at Low Dose Levels

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), through a combination of time-lapse live imaging and mathematical modeling of a special line of human breast cells, have found evidence to suggest that for low dose levels of ionizing radiation, cancer risks may not be directly proportional to dose. This contradicts the standard model for predicting biological damage from ionizing radiation – the linear-no-threshold hypothesis or LNT – which holds that risk is directly proportional to dose at all levels of irradiation.

Imaging of a cell’s DNA damage response to radiation shows that 1.5 minutes after irradiation, the sizes and intensities of radiation induced foci (RIF) are small and weak, but 30 minutes later damage sites have clustered into larger and brighter RIF, probably reflecting DNA repair centers.

“Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses,” says Mina Bissell, a world-renowned breast cancer researcher with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division. “This non-linear DNA damage response casts doubt on the general assumption that any amount of ionizing radiation is harmful and additive.”

Bissell was part of a study led by Sylvain Costes, a biophysicist also with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division, in which DNA damage response to low dose radiation was characterized simultaneously across both time and dose levels. This was done by measuring the number of RIF, for “radiation induced foci,” which are aggregations of proteins that repair double strand breaks, meaning the DNA double helix is completely severed.

Berkeley Lab biophysicist Sylvain Costes is generating 3D time lapse of DNA repair centers in human cells to understand better how cancer may arise from DNA damage. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab)

“We hypothesize that contrary to what has long been thought, double strand breaks are not static entities but will rapidly cluster into preferred regions of the nucleus we call DNA repair centers as radiation exposure increases,” says Costes. “As a result of this clustering, a single RIF may reflect a center where multiple double strand breaks are rejoined. Such multiple repair activity increases the risks of broken DNA strands being incorrectly rejoined and that can lead to cancer.”

Costes and Bissell have published the results of their study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in a paper titled “Evidence for formation of DNA repair centers and dose-response nonlinearity in human cells.” Also co-authoring the paper were Teresa Neumaier, Joel Swenson, Christopher Pham, Aris Polyzos, Alvin Lo, PoAn Yang, Jane Dyball, Aroumougame Asaithamby, David Chen and Stefan Thalhammer.

The authors believe their study to be the first to report the clustering of DNA double strand breaks and the formation of DNA repair centers in human cells. The movement of the double strand breaks across relatively large distances of up to two microns led to more intensely active but fewer RIF. For example, 15 RIF per gray (Gy) were observed after exposure to two Gy of radiation, compared to approximately 64 RIF/Gy after exposure to 0.1Gy. One Gy equals one joule of ionizing radiation energy absorbed per kilogram of human tissue. A typical mammogram exposes a patient to about 0.01Gy.

Corresponding author Costes says the DNA repair centers may be a logical product of evolution.

“Humans evolved in an environment with very low levels of ionizing radiation, which makes it unlikely that a cell would suffer more than one double strand break at any given time,” he says. “A DNA repair center would seem to be an optimal way to deal with such sparse damage. It is like taking a broken car to a garage where all the equipment for repairs is available rather than to a random location with limited resources.”

However, when cells are exposed to ionizing radiation doses large enough to cause multiple double strand breaks at once, DNA repair centers become overwhelmed and the number of incorrect rejoinings of double strand breaks increases.

“It is the same as when dozens of broken cars are brought to the same garage at once, the quality of repair is likely to suffer,” Costes says.

You can read the rest of the article here. The level of the data available is new, but the conclusion is not. The available data that has been collected for decades on both a microscopic and macroscopic level clearly shows that radiation dose does not produce a linear level of dna damage until it reaches a relatively high exposure level.

Unfortunately, this has never seemed to unseat the suborn linear non-threshold model, which continues to be the standard for most radiation exposure policy. I also doubt that this new data will do much to change that, although when studies like this do come out, it is certainly worthwhile to try to raise as much publicity as possible for it.

From the standpoint of nuclear energy policy, this data almost seems moot. The actual radiation level that the public is exposed to from nuclear energy is so tiny that even if LNT is used as the standard for exposure limits, one comes to the inevitable conclusion that it is more important to tear down all the granite buildings than to stop using nuclear energy. Therefore, no scientific data is ever likely to unseat the radiation argument against nuclear energy, because it was never based on science to begin with.

I am about to launch a website for my bid for the US Congress.   However, I’m sure it has spelling errors in it and I can’t find them alone.   Paying for editing would be expensive and likely delay things even more.   That’s why I am asking to crowd source it from anyone kind enough to point them out.  I can be e-mailed or you can just point them out in the comments here.

The website (which is still not up as the main page) can be found at http://www.packard2012.org/test/

Once I am pretty sure there are no horribly embarrassing spelling errors I’ll move it to being the main page of the site.

I know that there are also parts of it that are lacking.   It does not have a full photo gallery yet, the donations service is still pending on having the account finalized.  The “policies” section needs a few additional ones added.  I’m aware of that and working to add them.  Right now what I need help with is spelling.

Thanks to anyone who will help out.

A number of studies have been conducted on the use of various SSRI drugs during various stages of pregnancy and breast feeding. The majority of the studies done have not found any harmful effects of the use of SSRI’s on developing fetuses or infants who breastfeed. While these drugs do pass through the placenta, the concentration of exposure is at least two thirds less for the developing fetus than for the mother.

However, one study, done in 2007, did find a slight increase in a few birth defects in mothers who received relatively high doses of certain SSRI medications during the first trimester of their pregnancy. The study did not find any significant increase in overall odds of most birth defects, but did find an increase in a few birth defects, such as certain cardiac defects. Still, the total risk remains tiny with or without SSRI’s, and while the increase was greater than the statistical error of the study, confounding factors cannot be ruled out, such as the possibility that depressed mothers might have less healthy babies for a variety of reasons.

You can read the entire study here.

The reception of the study in the medical community was generally more one of reassurance than concern. While it indicated that there was at least a possibility that a few narrow birth defects might possibly be associated with SSRI’s, the overall risk is very low. Interestingly, the study did not find that these risks increased for all types of SSRI drugs. Zoloft and Paxil did appear to produce slight increases in some birth defects, but Prozac, Lexapro and other antidepressants did not produce any detectable increase in any birth defects.

Given that the risks are not completely proven and appear to be extremely low, the Mayo Clinic says the following about the use of antidepressants during pregnancy:

Overall, the risk of birth defects and other problems for babies of mothers who take antidepressants during pregnancy is low. Still, few medications have been proved safe without question during pregnancy and some types of antidepressants have been associated with health problems in babies.

It should also be noted that these slight increases in risk have been speculated about since before the 2007 study, and most women who received the drugs during pregnancy would have been told (or should have been told) by their doctor that the possibility existed that there could be a small increase in some birth defects.

Now enter the lawyers. Lets say, you happen to have had a child with a common and minor birth defect, like a cleft lip or a club foot, both of which are fairly common and correctable. You might have just put your child’s foot in a brace or taken them for minor plastic surgery and then thought nothing of it. Well, if you happen to have been taking an anti-depressent, there are lawyers out there who want to be sure you don’t just go on with your life without giving them a crack at the drug companies. And they’re paying for advertising to make sure you know.

Also, to be clear: Most of the conditions listed in the above ad have never been associated with Paxil or Zoloft, and it’s pure speculation that they would have any effect on those conditions simply because they MAY have effects on other conditions. Also, most of the drugs listed have, despite extensive study, never been linked to ANY birth defect. They are in the same class as the drugs Paxil and Zoloft, but it is pure speculation to think that because they have a similar mechanism of action that they MIGHT have an effect, even despite the fact that all studies to date have shown they do not and that the drugs that they are related to have not been linked to the conditions listed.

Worse still, there are several ads now running (sorry I could not find a video) that are saying the same thing about autistic children, despite there being not a shred of evidence that SSRI’s during pregnancy would have an impact on the probability of a child developing autism. It seems to be some kind of assumption that if some do possibly increase the risk of some birth defects then they must all cause autism.

Go figure…

Sorry, to say “I hate lawyers” is a rather rash and harsh statement, but this stuff really makes me sick.

Hitchens was an illuminating, if controversial force who contributed much to the world, especially in the areas of ethical and religious debate.   Despite his deteriorating health, he managed to continue his irreverent and pointed public commentary almost to the very end.

I first met Christopher Hitchens at Tam-5.  Sadly I never got a picture with him, but at least I shook his hand.  He was not able to make the next two Tam’s for various reasons and then he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which prevented him from attending many more conferences.

I’m sorry I did not get to know him better, though many of my close friends did.   We appreciate his contributions enormously and will miss him.

For those involved in skepticism, secularism and related areas, this is a sad day.

In the meantime, I have a temporary page up that has little more than a logo, but just the same, if you’d like to bookmark it and admire the logo you can do so at:

packard2012.org

Fission was recognized as a potential energy source after the possibility of a fission chain reaction was realized.  A chain reaction occurs when neutrons produced by nuclear fission strike other fissile nuclei, releasing more energy in a self-sustaining reaction.   In 1942, an experiment at the University of Chicago proved that nuclear fission could indeed produce such a chain reaction.   The first artificial fission reactor was created by piling large amounts of uranium together with ultra-pure graphite blocks.  The graphite slowed neutrons, making them easier to absorb by the uranium nuclei, resulting in the fission chain reaction.  In 1945, the first artificial fission chain reaction to occur without the aid of a moderator when the first nuclear weapon detonated in the Trinity test.  The Trinity device used plutonium as the fissile material, an element produced in nuclear reactors at the Hanford site.   Plutonium is too short-lived to be found in large quantities in nature.  Another bomb, fueled by uranium was the result of years of painstaking isotope separation, which increased the amount of fissile uranium-235 available to far beyond what is found in natural uranium samples.

For many years, it was believed that such fission reactions were always limited to these artificial circumstances.   Nuclear fission, it was thought, was the result of painstaking efforts by mankind to gather up the necessary materials, enrich beyond their natural concentrations and either bring them together rapidly in large quantities or place them in the special conditions inside a reactor, where neutron moderators make it possible to sustain nuclear fission.

In 1940, Russian scientists observed the phenomena of spontaneous fission, where heavy elements like uranium split on their own without the need for a neutron to cause the event.  It was also known that uranium atoms could split as the result of a neutron generated by cosmic rays.   However, such events are uncommon and produce little energy.   They are distinct from the chain reactions that had only been observed in human-created nuclear reactors.

All this changed in 1972, when an unusual discrepancy in the concentration of uranium-235 from a mine in Gabon Africa was detected.  Chemical analysis of a unique uranium deposit  indicated that the formation had sustained a fission chain reaction at one time.   The possibility of a natural nuclear reactor of this type had been suggested as early as 1956, but the Gabon discovery was the first time that such an event was confirmed to have happened.  Further investigation of the site identified at least sixteen regions of the deposit where the concentration of uranium and lighter elements clearly indicated that significant amounts of nuclear fission had occurred.

The reactor at Gabon operated about 1.7 billion years ago, producing chain reactions for at least hundreds of thousands of years.   It was remarkably similar to modern, artificial nuclear reactors.   Fission occurred when water seeped into cracks and pores in the deposits of extremely high grade uranium ore.   The water acted as a moderator, causing the chain reaction.   In modern times, water can only be used as a moderator in reactors where the uranium has been slightly enriched to contain more uranium-235 than found in nature, but because uranium-235 has a half-life of about seven hundred million years, there was a great deal more when the Gabon reactor was critical.

Exactly how long the Gabon reactor was critical or how much energy was released is not known.   Scientists have estimated that it probably generated about 100 kW of power and likely operated intermittently due to the buildup of neutron poisons and variations in the water levels in the rock.   It also generated some amount of plutonium-239 and other heavy isotopes, which would have added to the available fissile fuel.

There has been some debate about just how common reactors like that found in Gabon may have been.   While the Gabon deposit is the only one that is known to have sustained nuclear fission, that certainly does not mean it was the only one.  In fact, there were almost certainly others, possibly many others.  The geological record is incomplete for the period of time that the Gabon reactor was critical.  The vast majority of geological formations from over a billion years ago have long been obliterated by erosion, subduction, volcanic activity and other forces that continuously shape the earth’s crust.    Even if these reactors were once common on earth, we would not expect to find the evidence and the fact that at least one still exists intact at all may be sheer luck.

What is known is that deposits of uranium in concentrations high enough to potentially sustain such reactions are fairly common, even today, and while they don’t have the necessary isotopic concentrations to produce a fission chain reaction, they would have in earth’s early history.   The further back one goes, the higher the concentration of uranium-235 would be and thus the more easily a fission reactor could have come together.  Debate continues about the time scale when such reactors could have functioned, with some arguing that such naturally occurring uranium concentrations would require high levels of oxygen in order for the necessary geochemical processes to occur.

Yet the lack of a complete geological record ultimately makes it impossible to know for certain.   Reactors may have been very commonplace billions of years ago and they may have existed for some time after the period the Gabon reactor was dated to.   It’s remotely possible that a combination of plutonium produced within such reactors and the presence of better moderating materials, such as naturally-occurring beryllium allowed these formations to produce fission chain reactions even more recently than would have been possible with the Gabon reactor.

All that can be said is that there was a period of time in Earth’s distant history when natural nuclear reactors were possible and existed and they may very well have been fairly commonplace.   This itself is a huge revelation.

A reactor at the center of the earth?

Upon learning of the natural reactor discovered at Gabon, nuclear chemist J. Marvin Herndon hypothesized that nuclear fission might actually be far more central to the formation and conditions of earth than had been previously though.   Herndon suggested that if sufficient uranium existed in the core of the earth, it could result in a massive fast fission reactor, which would be capable of producing enough fuel through breeding to sustain fission for billions of years.

Herndon’s assertions have not generally been accepted by the mainstream geological community.   Direct evidence of such a reactor is relatively limited, although the levels of helium isotopes measured in volcanic samples have been intriguingly close to those that the hypothesis predicts. None the less, if true, the georeactor hypothesis would be an elegant explanation for a number of observed phenomena.   It would explain the source of apparently excessive heat in the earth’s core and mantel, which has traditionally been attributed exclusively to nuclear decay.   It also could explain the mysterious phenomena of magnetic pole reversal, which could have been caused by periods when the reactor stopped due to the buildup of neutron poisons, only to start again once they had decayed away.

There is, however, some other data which appears to dispute the possibility of a reactor at earth’s core.  It such a reactor did exist, the bulk of the earth would prevent gamma rays or neutrons from being detectable, but it should still be possible for neutrino detectors to measure the characteristic neutrinos generated from fission reactions in earth’s core.   The data from such detectors does not support the hypothesis that a nuclear fission reactor provides a significant proportion of the heat in the core and mantle of the earth.   Such a reactor could still exist, but it would have to be less than about three terawatts or a greater number of neutrinos should have been detected coming from the earth’s core.  In that case, the reactor would only account for a small portion of the 40 terawatts of observed geothermal activity.

While the neutrino data may seem to indicate that a large nuclear reactor is not currently operating within the earth, it does not rule out the possibility that such a reactor has operated intermittently and that it is currently either not producing a fission chain reaction or is only producing a small one.   Even if that is the case, the residual heat of such a reactor would be very significant.   It is also possible that a redactor existed at one time, perhaps billions of years ago, but has not produced a chain reaction since.   If this is the case, the implications are still enormous for the formation of the earth and the heat and magnetic fields observed to this day.

Implications for earth and beyond:

We really do not know if there is indeed a georeactor or if there ever was.  While the hypothesis is controversial, it cannot be completely discounted and must be considered a possible factor in the structure and formation of the earth.  The implications are quite profound and could rewrite our most basic presumptions of the planets history and formation.

What we can say for sure is that nuclear fission reactors did exist on earth, at least in the crust.  The influence of such reactors must now be considered as an influence on everything from the mineralogy of the earth’s crust to the formation of early life.   The amount of uranium and its daughter products observed in the modern earth may be less than what once existed due to much of the element fissioning away.   Some of the lighter elements that are abundant in the crust may be the byproducts of this fission.  The heat generated by these reactors could have played a major role in shaping the early geology of earth.  It may have even influenced life, possibly heating bodies of water or producing hot springs, where heat-dependent microbes flourished.   It’s even possible that the ionizing radiation generated by the reactors was a factor in the early formation and evolution of organisms.

But even if fission chain reactions did not play a major role in the history of earth, it does not diminish the potential importance on a cosmic scale.   If fission occurred naturally on earth, then we can be certain that occurred naturally elsewhere and continues to occur naturally elsewhere in the universe.   Similar reactors could have existed on other terrestrial planets in our solar system or may have contributed significant amounts of energy to the primordial planets as they formed around the sun.   It has been suggested that fission reactions could also account for the energy observed from the gas giant planets of the solar system.

With more than a billion billion stars in this galaxy alone, there are certainly other places where fission occurs and where it could easily play an important role in how planets form or how life might develop.  As a source of energy, fission could potentially provide the heat necessary for life to exist on planets or planetoids too far from stars to otherwise support life.   It could even mean that otherwise frozen bodies in interstellar space could harbor life.   This alone could vastly change our current ideas of where life might exist beyond earth.

The suggestion that fission could also play a role in the ignition of stars is yet another intriguing, if unorthodox hypothesis that needs to be at least considered.

Whatever role fission plays in the energy balance of the earth and the universe, we now know that it does play some role.  It happens.   It’s a fundamental reaction and a source of energy in nature.  It must be considered in cosmic and geological models as a potential influence.  Uranium and other heavy elements are formed in supernova and are found across the universe.   The distribution of these elements now needs to also be considered as an important factor in which kinds of reactions can occur in which areas.

The more practical side:

The artificial nature of fission has always been used as an argument against it.   It has been claimed that it produces materials that are not normally encountered and have properties that are different from any pre-existing substance and that the uniqueness of the reaction and its byproducts makes it unpredictable.   It has also been argued that since the sun and other stars are powered by fusion, nuclear fusion is therefore a more perfect, cleaner energy source that we have always lived with, while fission does not have the same kind of appeal.

We now know that this is simply not true.   Fission can and does happen on its own, without human intervention and has so for billions of years.   Fission chain reactions and the byproducts of fission are not alien to earth and their existence did not halt life, but may have facilitated it.  They can exist in the environment without causing catastrophe and always have.   Fission is not unusual and is certainly not a creation of man.   It is a basic reaction, as fundamental as fusion or fire.

We live in a nuclear powered universe.  The energy we experience may have come from nuclear fusion, fission, decay, from the reactions of cosmic rays or even from the subatomic reactions that occurred moments after the big bang.   Nuclear reactions generate all energy, liberating it from the forces that bind all mater together.  These reactions will happen with or without our intervention.

We would be fools to not realize this and use nuclear energy to our own advantage.

The Russian Phobos-Grunt mission was to be the first sample-return mission to the mars system.   The probe was not intended to land on mars.  Instead, it would include a lander bound for the martian moon Phobos and an orbiter.   The lander would include a series of scientific experiments along with a soil-collection system, capable of recovering 200 grams of material for return to earth.   Taking soil from Phobos is a bit easier than from mars, since the moon has less gravity and thus lifting off for the return to earth would be much easier. While Phobos may not be mars, it would still be an amazing achievement to bring back material from the vicinity of mars and a step toward conducting sample return missions on other moons in the solar system and eventually on mars itself.

Although Russian-lead, the probe was an international effort.  It carried an independent mars orbiter, Yinghuo-1 from the Chinese Space Agency.  It was to be the first Chinese interplanetary spacecraft.   It also carried a privately-funded experiment by the Planetary Society, which was aimed at proving whether bacteria could survive the trip between planets.  The European Space Agency also contributed to the program and provided assistance in the telemetry and ground-segment of the mission.

The probe lifted off successfully on November 9 and entered “parking orbit” around the earth.  From there it was supposed to preform systems tests and then fire a rocket engine to send it out of earth orbit and onto mars.  Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, the probe did not respond to commands.   Initially it sent back a series of weak signals which appeared to show it had entered safe mode, indicating some kind of systems failure or disrupting event.   Attempts by Russian controllers to send commands to the spacecraft failed to elicit a response and only a few weak signals were detected by ground receivers.

Additional efforts by Russian and European agencies to reestablish communications with the spacecraft have now officially ended.  Last week, ground stations in Australia did manage to pick up a weak signal from the spacecraft, but since then it has been completely silent.   It may be some sort of power systems problem which has resulted in the probe failing to obtain the necessary electricity to run systems from the solar panels, leaving it only the remaining energy in on board batteries.   Right now, it’s not certain what caused the mission to be lost.

The probe will likely return to earth some time in the next few months, as its orbit degrades.   Some concern has been expressed about the toxic hydrazine propellant onboard, but that’s unlikely to reach the ground.  In all likelihood, the tanks of the spacecraft will be breached up and the hydrazine burned up before it gets anywhere near the surface of earth.

The Soviet and now Russian space program has a long history of successful unmanned planetary probes, including some very impressive missions to Venus as well as lunar probes and missions to comets.  Yet it has suffered some extremely bad luck when it comes to mars.  Of the nineteen Russian missions to mars, dating back to 1960, not a single one has been entirely successful, with many exploding on launch or failing to successfully reach martian orbit.

There’s something a little ironic about the Soviet Union never being able to get to the red planet.