Video: There is No Great Stagnation

Click here for a VentureBeat article summarising Musk's many big ideas.

The Hyperloop - San Francisco to L.A. in 30 Minutes

Good article here on entrepreneur Elon Musk.

The article briefly touches on his lastest, still relatively secret paradigm shifting idea, the Hyperloop.

Graphic: Countries Most (Directly) Exposed to Greek Debt

The below picture doesn't tell the whole story as it misses indirect exposure to Greece, which in the case of the U.S. is purportedly quite significant.

From the BBC.

Was putting a man-on-the-moon peculiarly un-American?

First-image of ISS docking by a soon-to-retire U.S. space shuttle

The Economist has an interesting read on the 50-year anniversary of President Kennedy's speech which set a goal of putting a man-on-the-moon within a decade.

Here's the key excerpt:

He (Kennedy) set out to make America’s achievements in space an emblem of national greatness, and the project succeeded. Yet it did not escape the notice of critics even at the time that this entailed an irony. The Apollo programme, which was summoned into being in order to demonstrate the superiority of the free-market system, succeeded by mobilising vast public resources within a centralised bureaucracy under government direction. In other words, it mimicked aspects of the very command economy it was designed to repudiate. 

That may be why subsequent efforts to transfer the same fixity of purpose to broader spheres of peacetime endeavour have fallen short. If we can send a man to the moon, people ask, why can’t we [fill in the blank]? Lyndon Johnson tried to build a “great society”, but America is better at aeronautical engineering than social engineering. Mr Obama, pointing to competition from China, invokes a new “Sputnik moment” to justify bigger public investment in technology and infrastructure. It should not be a surprise that his appeals have gone unheeded. Putting a man on the moon was a brilliant achievement. But in some ways it was peculiarly un-American—almost, you might say, an aberration born out of the unique circumstances of the cold war. It is a reason to look back with pride, but not a pointer to the future.

Barring a crisis or existential threat, are the prospects for the U.S. undertaking an ambitious, focussed transition to a sustainable energy based system, or an affordable healthcare system, extremely remote?

In short, was the U.S.'s Race to the Moon success, as The Economist puts it, a 'glorious one-off'?

2045: The Year Science Makes Humans Immortal?

Ray Kurzweil

For my money it just doesn't get any more bleeding edge than the 'Singularity'.

A good read published in Time yesterday on this topic, and radical life-extension, featuring inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, Cambridge Professor Aubrey de Grey, investor Peter Thiel, and others at the forefront of this (for lack of a better term) movement.

From the article:

The more you read about the Singularity, the more you start to see it peeking out at you, coyly, from unexpected directions. Five years ago we didn't have 600 million humans carrying out their social lives over a single electronic network. Now we have Facebook. Five years ago you didn't see people double-checking what they were saying and where they were going, even as they were saying it and going there, using handheld network-enabled digital prosthetics. Now we have iPhones. Is it an unimaginable step to take the iPhones out of our hands and put them into our skulls? 

Already 30,000 patients with Parkinson's disease have neural implants. Google is experimenting with computers that can drive cars. There are more than 2,000 robots fighting in Afghanistan alongside the human troops. This month a game show will once again figure in the history of artificial intelligence, but this time the computer will be the guest: an IBM super-computer nicknamed Watson will compete on Jeopardy! Watson runs on 90 servers and takes up an entire room, and in a practice match in January it finished ahead of two former champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. It got every question it answered right, but much more important, it didn't need help understanding the questions (or, strictly speaking, the answers), which were phrased in plain English.

The idea of the Singularity first hit me like a lightning bolt a little over a decade ago when I read Sun Microsystem co-founder Bill Joy's alarming Wired article titled Why the Future Doesn't Need Us. I've been fascinated and trying to wrap my mind around the many potential implications of exponential technological development and living indefinitely ever since.

The Antithesis of Idle Chitchat

If you're looking for a way to spice up your next dinner party or bar conversation then I encourage you to trot out the idea of science making immortality a reality within your lifetime.

As noted by Kurzweil, people can more easily accept the idea of superhuman HAL-like computer artificial intelligence in the foreseeable future than banishing death. Based on limited anecdotal observations women in particular seem to have an almost viscerally negative, knee-jerk response when first confronted with the notion that the necessary technological advances could arrive in their lifetime.

In fact I have yet to encounter a single woman that responds positively at first blush to the idea of living forever. Perhaps the only thing this reveals is a homogeneity amongst my circle of female friends and acquaintances. But it has led me to wonder whether there is something fundamental to radical life extension which makes it more appealing to men?

Personally, I don't think so. Rather I think this is a case of a big, hard to fathom idea traumatically upending the perceived natural order of life's apple cart. Once you get passed initial concerns over things like quality of life (living long but as a gimp or vegetable) or what this means for romance (and concepts like soul mates) then some women soften up their initial distaste for life extension.

I for one love the idea of extending life indefinitely! There is so much I would love to learn, see, and do; to one day catch a sunrise on planet Mars and then climb Olympus Mons, a mountain almost three times as tall as Everest!

So far as I can imagine there is simply nothing else which would more profoundly alter life as we know it than the Singularity and radical life extension. However, their prospect raises tectonic moral, philosophical, socioeconomic, and security implications. Joy's concerns, which are shared by Kurzweil, must be addressed.

Below is a video of a 17-year old Kurzweil during his 1965 television appearance on I've Got a Secret, and here is a link to his most recent television interview on Charlie Rose where he describes the Singularity.

Scientists Propose One-Way Trip to Mars

Not a suicide mission, mind you, but a proposal to send the real life version of 'Space Cowboys' (older astronauts) on a one-way mission to Mars to begin permanent colonization of the red planet.

And what's the big justification for a one-way trip? Scientists argue it would cut mission costs by 80%.

From the article:

Schulze-Makuch believes many people would be willing to make the sacrifice.

He and Davies believe a Mars base would offer humanity a "lifeboat" if Earth became uninhabitable.

"We are on a vulnerable planet," Schulze-Makuch said. "Asteroid impact can threaten us, or a supernova explosion. If we want to survive as a species, we have to expand into the solar system and likely beyond."

I agree with Schulze-Makuch that numerous people would volunteer to become the first human Martians. But the additional time and cost of bringing back the first human visitors to Mars may well be worth it.

While humans have been exploring space for almost five decades, space travel is still dangerous. Turning the first human trip to Mars also into the first human colony sounds like great bang-for-the-buck, but it is fraught with risk. Schulze-Makuch's suggestion may accelerate the initial timetable, it could also set the overall long-term space exploration and colonization effort back.

Reflecting its longheld "first you must go slow before you can go fast" approach, it's unsurprising that Schulze-Makuch's proposal was greeted by a lack of NASA enthusiasm.

But Schulze-Makuch's suggestion that the private sector might be interested in taking on such risks introduces all sorts of interesting property rights and legal questions. For example, will or should the first visitors to Mars be allowed to stake a claim?

Morbidly Cool Website: The 'Impact Catastrophe Calculator'

Following up my recent post on the Ultimate Black Swan, if you're curious about how much damage different types of asteroids would do if they struck earth check out the 'impact catastrophe calculator'.

You can customize your asteroid along the following parameters:

• Diameter - a prepopulated list gives asteroid sized options such as a school bus, the Empire State Building, or the London
• Density - i.e., ice, porous rock, iron, etc.
• Impact Angle
• Velocity
• Surface type struck (i.e, sedimentary rock, water, etc.)

A brief video showing your asteroid careening for earth plays, which is then followed up with a damage report detailing the crater size, etc.

For All Mankind

To get the country back on track does the United States need a big, audacious "man on the moon" type goal?

Whether converting the energy infrastructure from fossil fuels to clean energy, or sending humans to Mars (and returning them), would an ambitious, forward looking project of this scale help us regain our confidence and vitality?

Looking back at the original man on the moon project, I highly recommend For All Mankind, the 1989 Academy Award nominated documentary by Director Al Reinert. It is a great film with a superb soundtrack, which features Brian Eno. A brief sample clip from the beginning of the movie is  below. And for home theatre buffs with a good subwoofer, I highly recommend cranking up the Saturn V rocket launch scene.



Absolutely amazing what the United States was able to accomplish 40+ years ago with the technology of the day.

Cheap Insurance Against the Ultimate Black Swan

With minds fixated on next week's U.S. midterm elections and Fed QE2, I thought it could be a nice, light distraction to write about the greatest known threat to life on earth.

What is it?

Global warming, infectious disease, and thermonuclear war are some of the more common answers to this question.

However, there is another threat of perhaps even greater danger which doesn't receive nearly as much airtime, or resources devoted to its prevention.

Illustration of an asteroid impact

Former astronaut Russell Schweickart recently penned a NY Times piece on the very real risks posed by asteroids to life on earth. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Schweickart several years ago, and he is generally considered the leading advocate for increasing awareness and addressing this threat.

Asteroids -- as any T-Rex fan will attest -- can be absolutely devastating. Strong scientific evidence suggests that 65 million years ago an asteroid of approximately seven to eight miles in diameter struck near Mexico and wiped out the dinosaurs and over half of all species.

It doesn't take an eight mile asteroid to cause significant damage. The 'Tunguska event', which featured an asteroid with a diamater of only 120 feet, leveled approximately 800 square miles of (thankfully) relatively empty Siberian forest. An asteroid much smaller than Tunguska could hit a heavily populated area and cause a loss of life in the millions.

Can Anything Be Done?

There is some good news. We already possess the technical knowledge to prevent asteroid impact. We can detect asteroids that may collide with earth, sometimes up to a decade in advance of potential impact. We also know what to do once we've spotted one that's on a collision course with our planet. One option can be described simply as using a spacecraft to "rear-end" the asteroid. This alters the asteroid's trajectory away from earth.

The bad news is that we are not investing the relative pittance it would take to mitigate asteroid impact risk. Schweickart estimates that it would cost roughly $250-$300 million over the next 10 years to track all asteroids and fully develop the deflection capability. Annual maintenance expense for the program would be $50-$75 million. These figures represent a small fraction of the U.S. federal budget.

Further, international discussions are underway so that the U.S. may not have to foot the entire bill. The below video features Russell Schweickart speaking about asteroid risk and international coordination at a recent European Space Agency meeting in Germany.



So, the choice is pretty clear. We can either spend a few hundred millions dollars and mitigate asteroid risk. Or we can continue to roll the dice risking perhaps all life on earth.

Do we really need to think hard about this one?