A Geosynchronous Orbit Search Strategy

Since more than 10 years there is evidence that small-size space debris is accumulating in the geosynchronous orbit (GEO), probably as the result of breakups. Two break-ups have been reported in GEO. The 1978 break-up of an EKRAN 2 satellite, SSN 10365, was identified in 1992, and in 1992 a Titan 3C Transtage, SSN 3432, break-up produced at least twenty observable pieces. Subsequently several nations performed optical surveys of the GEO region in the form of independent observation campaigns. Such surveys suffer from the fact that the field of view of optical telescopes is small compared with the total area covered by the GEO ring. As a consequence only a small volume of the orbital element-magnitude-space is covered by each individual survey. Results from these surveys are thus affected by observational biases and therefore difficult to compare. This paper describes the development of a common search strategy to overcome these limitations. The strategy optimizes the sampling for objects in orbits similar to the orbits of the known GEO population but does not exclude the detection of objects with other orbital planes. A properly designed common search strategy clearly eases the comparison of results from different groups and the extrapolation from the sparse (biased) samples to the entire GEO environment.     

SETI education programs in Australia

This paper discusses and evaluates two innovative SETI education programs conducted at the University of Western Sydney, viz: the SETI Pathways Program and the Life in the Universe Curriculum Project.     

Exosemiotics: an inter-disciplinary approach

Over the past several hundred years, many ideas have been expressed as to how human beings might communicate with extraterrestrials. These ideas have been put forth by experts from a diverse range of fields including physical scientists, mathematicians, behavioral scientists, philosophers and creative writers who have widely differing views on how to express ourselves coherently with civilizations from other worlds.This paper will look at some of these differing viewpoints and stress the need for an inter-disciplinary approach to the challenges of sending and, perhaps most important, receiving messages. Could we decipher a message if we got one? Who is doing the listening and what advantages could an inter-disciplinary approach bring to these efforts? What are some inter-disciplinary approaches to sending messages to extraterrestrials?     

National paper of the Russian Federation

Despite its straightened circumstances and doubts about how much political support it receives, Russia's space programme continues — and continues to plan for new activities and applications. This edited version of the National Paper of the Russian Federation, presented at Unispace III in July 1999, details some of the country's major achievements in space in recent years and sets out the main areas it intends to pursue for the early twentieth-first century. While emphasis is placed on communications, remote sensing, navigation and space science, the commitment to manned flight remains.     

Safety issues in SPS wireless power transmission

The use of wireless power transmission in Space Solar Power (SSP) activities creates significant policy issues regarding the beam right-of-way. There will not be a single beam, there may well be hundreds of beams for economical systems. Are some or all of these power beams to be afforded priorities of space for unobstructed power delivery, or must the beaming systems be designed to be capable of detecting any and all potential beam interceptions and appropriately responding? The repeated interruptions for guaranteed safety of transit for freely moving air and space traffic are of great consequence. The safety issues are critical, but the implications for equipment transient protection, energy storage system costs and the quality of power delivery service are also significant for wireless power transmission economics. A scenario of precursor wireless power transmission developments leading up to and including SSP applications will be used to frame and to discuss the beamed power technology implications and policy issues.     

Organizing and managing satellite solar power

Building an organization and management structure to create, launch, utilize and protect a satellite solar power energy system will require a global policy for the beneficial use of SSP. The fundamental organizational tasks are: (1) R&D, achieved through a project organization characterized by the integrated management of applied science, development research and construction engineering; (2) investment, generated by a series of groups creating financial vehicles for public and private investment; (3) transmission and distribution, characterized by attention to an engineering and maintenance process emphasizing high reliability; and (4) crisis response, demanding readiness for instant response to potential internal or external scenarios. A differentiated global organization spanning the long timeframe of SSP will need to have a central management core representative of all parts of the organization, with the capacity for self-renewal and re-adaptation. To be successful over its long timeframe, the SSP organization will need to build continuity and public confidence through intergenerational communication, public education, and community outreach. Integrating structures must be created at all levels of the organization, and should encompass joint work tasks and information-sharing among both industrial and government members. Developmental and alliance partners who support the formation and financing of a differentiated satellite solar power organization will share commensurately in the technologies and competencies that are created.     

Modeling visuospatial reasoning

I apply my proposed modification of Soar/Spatial/Visual System and Kosslyn’s (1983) computational operations on images to problems within a 2 × 2 taxonomy that classifies research according to whether the coding involves static or dynamic relations within an object or between objects (Newcombe & Shipley, 2015). I then repeat this analysis for problems that are included in mathematics and science curricula. Because many of these problems involve reasoning from diagrams Hegarty’s (2011) framework for reasoning from visual-spatial displays provides additional support for organizing this topic. Two more relevant frameworks specify reasoning at different levels of abstraction (Reed, 2016) and with different combinations of actions and objects (Reed, 2018). The article concludes with suggestions for future directions.