A search of the IRAS database for evidence of Dyson Spheres

One of the forms of astroengineering activity that a very advanced civilization could possibly carry on is the constructions of huge “buildings” in space around the central star. Historically such constructions are called Dyson Spheres. We would like to introduce a new name — Astroengineering Constructions (AC) — to mean a more general type of construction not necessarily related to any specific star. AC absorb energy from different types of activity and re-emit it as infrared radiation, i.e. radiation lying in the submillimeter and millimeter range. Further, AC are expect to have spectra similar to the black-body spectra because they re-emit all the energy that they absorb, although in the infrared range, as already mentioned. Thus, the effective temperature of these Planckian distributions is expected to lie between 3–300 K with the spectrum peaking between 10 μm and 10 mm. We have analyzed the IRAS database and extracted a catalog of sources whose spectra are similar to the black-body emission. The catalog of these sources and their preliminary parameters are discussed. The distribution of the color temperatures of IRAS sources and the sky distribution of sources are also considered. The possibility of the distinction of AC from thick circumstellar dust shells around red giant stars is discussed.     

Surreal estate: addressing the issue of ‘Immovable Property Rights on the Moon’

At a time when scientific and commercial interest in the Moon is being reinvigorated it is becoming fashionable for ordinary individuals to ‘buy’ plots on the lunar surface, with the ‘vendors’ arguing that an absence of specific prohibition of individual private activity in space makes such action legal. It is therefore time for the legal community to address this situation by investigating just how legal such activity is—and bringing their findings to the attention of governments. This can be done through an examination of the relationship between national law and international space law, of the provisions of international space law—especially Article 2 of the Outer Space Treaty—and by answering any claims to private ownership of immovable property. Aside from the fact that individuals appear to be being duped, the pursuit of property claims on the Moon could impede future activities aimed at benefiting society.     

The turbulent combustion of a propane-air mixture

This paper models the combustion of a turbulent homogeneous mixture of propane and air within a duct having a stationary one-dimensional mean flow. The Bray-Moss model is applied to the closure of the chemical production terms, using a probability density function (pdf) of the temperature which is chosen as the characteristic variable. Under the conditions chosen for the study, chemical kinetic factors are important and the conventional assumption, that heat release is controlled by turbulent mixing, is not valid. The chemical model of Edelman and Fortune for the combustion of hydrocarbons is used and simplifying assumptions are made which reduce the systems of unknowns to that of the temperature alone. This leads to the introduction of two chemical production terms which are defined respectively in a “delay zone”, where the heat release is modest, and a “combustion zone”. The required equations for the Favre-averaged temperature, turbulence kinetic energy and the mean square fluctuation of the temperature are solved numerically. In the delay zone, a comparison is made between a second order Borghi type closure and the pdf closure. Good agreement is found in the case of relatively small turbulence intensity. It is shown that the pdf formulation does not require the two zones to be spatially distinct. Differing chemical source terms can be discriminated instantaneously by the reaction progress variable and contributions to the average production terms appropriately apportioned by its pdf. Predictions are made of the profiles of mean temperature and mean square fluctuation under different initial turbulence levels.     

SPS — time for a pilot plant

Scientists have expended much energy researching SPS but their theories have never yet been realistically tested. It is time for this to change and SPS 2000 — a Japanese-sponsored project to construct and operate a pilot plant to supply electricity to residents of equatorial zones — could provide the means. The project and its benefits are described and the political—economic imperatives for undertaking it presented. The author argues that there are cogent — and practical — reasons for funding a pilot plant, especially given the vast sums spent on other space activities, and on nuclear power, although the latter has never lived up to expectations.     

Space commercialization and the law

This article examines the current legal status of commercial activities in space and describes the legislation — both national and international — existing for their regulation. The question of who is responsible for the action of non-governmental entities is thoroughly discussed, as is the notion of freedom of enterprise. Finally the author looks at the most commercialized areas of space activities — telecommunications and Earth observations — before drawing some conclusions on likely future trends in the privitization and regulation of space activities.     

Some comments on the ESA/EU space strategy

Not only have the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union Commission succeeded in producing a joint space strategy within the time set for it, they have created a substantial and worthwhile document which recognises the importance of space for Europe and acknowledges that ESA—not national agencies—is the right body for the conduct of Europe's space efforts. Nevertheless, the strategy's lack of any government financial commitment is a worry— Public–Private Partnerships will never be enough—as is its failure to include any thought for the long term, and in particular manned flight. This critique of the strategy argues for more government spending on space and for greater long-term vision.     

Europe's space plans and opportunities for cooperation

This is a slightly abridged and edited version of the welcoming speech made by European Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen at the ‘Winning through co-operation: sharing the benefits of space’ conference held in Brussels on 17–18 February 2005 as part of European Space Week. The importance of space for Europe across many areas—now explicitly acknowledged by the European Commission—is highlighted. Future initiatives are discussed and the Union's approach to international cooperation is outlined. It was hoped that the conference would provide an opportunity for participants to identify the best opportunities for partnership in space.     

Gasification effects in the heterogeneous ignition of a condensed fuel by a hot gas

An analysis is presented to describe the heterogeneous ignition of a condensed fuel suddenly exposed to a hot oxidizing atmosphere. The exothermic heterogeneous reaction, generating gaseous products, is considered to be of the Arrhenius type with an activation energy large compared with the initial thermal energy of the fuel. Instantaneously after contact with the gases the surface temperature rises to a jump value which is calculated allowing for variable transport properties of fuel and gas. The effect of the chemical heat release and the cooling effect due to the gasification flow are taken into account in obtaining an integral equation, involving a single parameter Δ, which is solved to describe the evolution of surface temperature with time. A runaway in surface temperature is found to occur at a well defined ignition time, which is calculated as a function of Δ. For values of Δ above a critical value no ignition occurs because the cooling effects of the gasification flow dominate over the effects of chemical heat release.     

Globalization and commercialization of satellite broadcasting: current issues

The issues of freedom of information and protection of national sovereignty have been brought to the fore by the global spread of satellite broadcasting. This article discusses the issues and the international legal strategies that have been adopted to deal with them. It is suggested that the European model—in which states have no right to interfere with reception but broadcasters are obliged to fill 50% of their content with European programs—presents a blueprint that others could follow.     

Advanced charged particle beam ignited nuclear pulse propulsion

It is shown that the mass of the driver for nuclear microexplosion—Orion type—pulse propulsion can be substantially reduced with a special fusion–fast fission configuration, which permits to replace an inefficient laser beam driver with a much more efficient and less massive relativistic electron beam (or light ion beam) driver. The driver mass can be further reduced, and the propulsion efficiency increased, by surrounding the nuclear microexplosion assembly with a shell of conventional hydrogen-rich explosive, helping to ignite the nuclear reaction and dissipating the otherwise lost kinetic neutron energy in the shell which becomes part of the propellant.     

Space station — the new frontier

The exciting challenge of building a permanent space station has been taken up by the USA, and participation in its development has been offered to the USA's allies. European countries are faced with the dilemma of whether to cooperate or to try to develop an autonomous approach. This article discusses the opportunities for Europe in participating closely in the US project — particularly in providing pressurized modules based on the Columbus programme — and argues that it is an opportunity not to be missed.     

Statistical Relationships between Solar,Interplanetary, and Geomagnetic Disturbances, 1976–2000: 3

In this paper we continue the analysis of the influence of solar and interplanetary events on magnetic storms of the Earth that was started in [9, 10]. Different experimental results on solar-terrestrial physics are analyzed in the study and the effects are determined that arise due to differences in the methods used to analyze the data. The classifications of magnetic storms by the K _p and D _st indices, the solar flare classifications by optical and X-ray observations, and the classifications of different geoeffective interplanetary events are compared and discussed. It is demonstrated that quantitative estimations of the relationships between two types of events often depend on the direction in which the events are compared. In particular, it was demonstrated that the geoeffectiveness of halo CMEs (that is, the percentage of Earth-directed coronal mass ejections that result in geomagnetic storms) is 40–50%. Higher values given in some papers were obtained by another method, in which they were defined as the probability of finding candidates for a source of geomagnetic storms among CMEs, and, strictly speaking, these values are not true estimates of the geoeffectiveness. The latter results are also in contrast with the results of the two-stage tracing of the events: first a storm—an interplanetary disturbance, and then an interplanetary disturbance—a CME.     

The impact of launch vehicle type and size on development cost

The technical development trend of future launch vehicle systems is towards fully reusable systems, in order to reduce space transportation cost. However, different types of launch vehicles are feasible, as there are

• —winged two-stage systems (WTS)

• —ballistic single-stage vehicles (BSS)

• —ballistic two-stage vehicles (BTS)

The performance of those systems is compared according to the present state of the art as well as the development cost, based on the “TRANSCOST-Model”. The development costs are shown versus launch mass (GLOW) and pay-load for the three types of reusable systems mentioned above.It is shown that performance optimization and cost minimization lead to different results. It is more economic to increase the vehicle size for achieving higher performance, instead of increasing technical complexity.Finally it is described that due to the essentially lower launch cost of reusable vehicles it will be feasible to recover the development cost by an amortization charge on the launch cost. This possibility, however, would allow commercial funding of future launch vehicle developments.     

International coordination of space solar power related activities

Because the need for energy is global, and many energy networks are already interdependent, because no one country has sufficient technological capability or sufficient funds to provide a space solar powered solution on its own, and because any such solution will require international regulation, international coordination will be vital to any attempt to produce energy for Earth from space. This will be made easier by the fact that work on the subject has already been widely publicized and distributed and cooperative efforts have already been made. Various coordinating approaches are described and the need to forge partnerships between government, industry and academia — with greater involvement of all non-space groups concerned with energy — is emphasized. A “terracing approach” to the actual implementation of SPS is suggested and outlined.     

Space law conference 2001 : Legal challenges and commercial opportunities for Asia

Many eminent space lawyers gathered in Singapore to attend the first space law conference to be held in South East Asia. Topics for discussion—which included commercialization of space activities and its effect on the needs of developing countries, and the legal issues of expanding communications and navigation satellite services—were of particular interest to the region. This report summarizes the presentations in each session and presents the conclusions and recommendations—such as the need for a legal instrument to regulate remote sensing—produced.     

Space power systems: Producing transportation (and other chemical) fuels as an alternative to electricity generation

While most studies on space power systems target electricity generation as the energy product, industrialized nations also have a need for chemicals to support transportation and other purposes. This paper therefore describes an alternative target for the application of space power systems: the production of chemical fuels based on radiant energy beamed or reflected from orbiting platforms. If cost and efficiency targets can be achieved, Solar Thermochemical Plants—occupying a few square kilometers each—can potentially generate substantial quantities of transportation fuels, therefore enabling reductions in the consumption of petroleum and the emission of carbon dioxide. The specifics of the approach that are described in this paper include the concentration of radiant energy within ground-based systems so that high temperature heat is provided for thermochemical process networks. This scoping study includes the evaluation of various feedstock chemicals as input to the Solar Thermochemical Plant: natural gas, biomass and zero-energy chemicals (water and carbon dioxide); and the production of either hydrogen or long-chain hydrocarbons (i.e., Fischer–Tropsch fuels) as the Solar Fuel product of the plant.     

A code of ethics for conducting business in outer space

The aim to increase commercial economic activity in space will be facilitated by the introduction of a code of ethics for the businesses involved, something that is now commonplace on Earth. A proposed such code—comprising 12 principles—is presented below. It covers areas such as environmental stewardship of space, the promotion of honest dealings, making safety an important concern, ensuring a free-market economy and disclosure of conflicts of interest or political contributions.     

The biosphere 2 project and its potential role in assisting space exploration

Space Biospheres Ventures is developing technologies for its Biosphere 2 project — a 3 acre materially closed ecological system with human habitat, intensive agriculture and five wilderness biomes — and other life-support testbeds for space habitats in microgravity and the Moon and Mars, as well as for ecological research pertinent to the biosphere of Earth. These include soil bed reactors for air purification and biomass production; aquatic waste processing systems; real-time analytic systems; and computer systems of control and management. A space policy pursuing joint Earth and ‘space biospheres’ objectives and implications is discussed.     

Recent and future activities of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs

This article discusses the development, and the current and future work, of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs. The Office is active both as a source of information, education and training on space and as a secretariat to COPUOS and its Subcommittees; it also performs a role in the monitoring and implementation of various space-related legal treaties. Presently—and as part of the drive to use space to improve life on Earth—the bulk of its work is guided by the Vienna Declaration produced at UNISPACE III.     

Basic space science and developing countries

Basic science — including space science — is vital for national development, but developing countries often meet obstacles to participation in the international scientific community. This can be mitigated by international cooperation, particularly in the field of education. The author calls for a concerted effort to increase such cooperation regionally, internationally and bilaterally; international organizations should also become involved. Various forms of cooperation are suggested and UN efforts in the promotion of basic space science are described.