Gone to Twitter!

Well after about 10 years here, the platform is pretty archaic (too many steps to make a new post, add pictures etc) and it's a lot easier to be connected with others on Twitter; so from here out most of what I report will be there.

A great way to wrap up here -- link to Mom's new book, 15 years in the making! A beautiful cover and the text and photos tell you all that's known on this subject!

Paper for Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop 2017 Underway!

Back to the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop in October, for this year's meetings with NASA technologists, managers of the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, and many others. The project of interstellar exploration for eventual voyaging is fascinating and allows me to apply my interests and knowledge of human biocultural evolution in the distant past to the just-as-fascinating distant human future!

Click here for a link to a preview of my paper.

Below, JPEG snapshots of the synopsis.

2017 Pressure Suit Ready to Fly

Eight years of design, building and testing seven models of a functional pressure suit, for my forthcoming expeditions to high altitudes, have resulted in the garment below. Weight 12.5lb, cost <$1,000, operating pressure 3.5psi (pure oxygen environment), overpressure valve opening 4.2psi, includes thermal garment for heat and cooling, integral communicatuions and biomedical monitoring devices, push-to-talk stud activators on gauntlets (not seen here), a unique stress-distributing 'x band' system (yet to be completed) and many more features. The entire ensemble is flameproof and has features allowing a long hike out of remote terrain. All home made in countless hours of stitching and other assembly and listening to an endless parade of audiobooks!

My flight training resumes 28 May for a 17 Aug final flying test to earn pilot's wings! I am looking forward to it.

Mostly-daily updates on Twitter.

Progress Towards Flight!

Probably the most useful skill I have ever learned, for my little domain of activity in life, is sailmaking. It taught me to make strong bonds in textiles and rope, both of which are central to my space suit project. Today, a little detail work, seen in photo below; also another photo with two team members, Paulina Spaceflight and JP! New suit is light, cheap, and works! Will reveal entirely before long!

The London Times

Recently my project is part of a story in the Times of London; the article mistakenly indicates that I will test my suit by jumping from my balloon at high altitude, but actually I will only be jumping in emergency circumstances and plan to launch and land my craft in a controlled manner!

Very busy; new suit in production for flying this summer, and a lot of writing projects.

Roughly-daily updates at Twitter.

Another Visitor!

The other day I was thrilled to have a visiting high school student, Joseph T., and his Mom, come by the shop / my home. Joseph has exotic ideas for spacecraft and is designing a capsule to take him around the moon on a no-landing mission. He has professional training in sailmaking and is equally interested in physics. History shows that it's exactly from such 'crazy dreamers' that many advances are made.

Was on jury duty this week but starting tomorrow very EXCITING fabrication AND pressure testing of the new suit!

Ten Hours

Ten hours' fabrication today / tonight assembled a new suit bladder from five textile patterns laying on the floor, cut last night. The suit design is subtly and substantially improved over the prior design, first flown last summer. I think this new design is very close to the final flying design for this summer's high flights! The fit is finely-tailored and exactly what is needed, it slips on and off and has extra room where needed and constrictions where they are needed.

A Year Ago Today!

Signing balloon purchase papers over to me in Flint, Michigan before the long drive back to Portland!

Laniakea: Our Home Supercluster

I saw an updated visualization of this at Google headquarters in summer 2016. Completely mind-melting and inspiring! Click to link to YouTube.

Laniakea

Rocket Chair and New Coverall!

First photo is my buddy Peter Madsen taking 7g's in his rocket-chair-centrifuge in Copenhagen -- inspirational! He is working on reaching space in his home-built rocket. Plenty of critics on the sidelines, just as there were of Robert Goddard and so many other original thinkers. While critics talk, Peter builds!

Second photo, tonight I seamed together the first draft of the Mark VII pressure suit coverall! Flameproof textile, even flameproof Nomex/Aramid thread -- taking as few chances as I can! We'll be flying again late Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter -- a lot of flying!

Early Phases of a Science

"...the early phases of a science require...a certain disregard for the formalisms and pedantic, creeping constructions of the ultimate scientific edifice. Perhaps what is essential is a foundation of sensible, if vague, ideas and orienting attitudes--correct in their broadest sweep if not in their precise predictions."
-- From p.701 of Hailman, J.P. 1970. Ethology Evolving. Science 168(3932):700-701.

Adaptation to Mars

How could people possibly survive on Mars? Won't radiation fry their brains? How would children develop? These general questions are why I am writing a technical, specific book outlining the principles of biological and cultural adaptation that will allow our species to explore beyond Earth, and live beyond Earth, escaping the extinction trap that Earth has been for 99% of all known life to date. So here is one recent diagram not generalizing but saying very specifically what we can expect in one instance, the development of standing and walking among Mars children. On that planet, gravity has about 1/3 the 'strength' of Earth's and yes, children will develop different physiques and even different habitual gaits to walking and running and they will even express themselves, with body language, slightly differently than Earth people. A slow differentiation, both biological and cultural, will start with the earliest generations on that planet.

Major Step Ahead

Lots of close tailoring over the past few months have given me and my team a good understanding of the ways to fabricate excellent, tailored pressure suits. Tonight I righted a mistake we made the other night and got most of the Mark VII (seventh major design) seamed together, the seams look good and soon I can attach the helmet ring, gloves and boots -- see photos in earlier posts of our home-fabricated helmets, we've for some months now retired the old Russian air force helmet I've been using since 2009! We'll be flying this suit to increasing altitudes through this year!

Congratulations to Our Team Member!

Today our new team member, Trent T. of Seattle, was accepted to the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Scientist-Astronaut traing program; it is described below:

"For those holding a B.S. Degree from an accredited university, the PoSSUM Scientist-Astronaut Qualification Program at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is a five-day, fully immersive training program that will provide the skills required to effectively conduct research on the next generation of commercial space vehicles as part of Project PoSSUM. Upon graduation, you will be fully trained and qualified to participate in PoSSUM graduate specializations, become a PoSSUM educator, or to fly to space as a PoSSUM Scientist-Astronaut!"

From Pacific Spaceflight that now makes two young aviators-in-training, the first was Alexander K., now a pilot-in-training at the Hillsboro Air Academy. In the photos below, Trent in a recent pressure test, and below that, Alexander K. when I visited him in central Oregon during some of my own flight training!

I'm very proud of these buddies of mine! They're the generation who will begin to explore again beyond Low Earth Orbit in the large project of human space settlement beyond Earth. Best luck, fellas!

My Tech Talk at Oregon Institute of Technology

They've now posted the talk given in mid-2016, titled "Private Development of a Low-Cost, Lightweight, Launch-Reentry Pressure Suit". I think if it plays on this page, half the images are cut off, so best to click here for the direct link.

Balloon Work on Snow Day!

My buddy Trent helped me do some routine work on the balloon this weekend. Beautiful snowy and windy weather!

By Sea, By Snow, By Land, and By Shore: Dispersals of the Genus Homo

Tomorrow's talk at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry!

Flying and Other Vehicles

In sailing, flying, climbing and Arctic 'man-hauling' expeditions worldwide I've been lucky to build, board and use all kinds of craft. In the diagram below (made last year) I compare my balloon, an RX-7, to some other interesting craft. Back to flying after Christmas with the family! A lot of flights scheduled for 2017!

And a great photo showing balloon shadow during landing back in September! Landings are so interesting in part because our descent and horizontal rates, below 1,000 feet, are much like those of an Apollo lunar lander!

My Talk at the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop

Early this year I was thrilled to receive an invitation from NASA's Dr. Les Johnson, of the Marshall Space Flight Center, to do a presentation on human biological and cultural adaptation to environments beyond Earth at the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop. Les's expertise is in 'exotic propulsion systems', some of them entirely theoretical and aimed at allowing humanity to explore beyond our solar system. This is far-out stuff! But we must begin somewhere. I've arranged for Les to be here in Portland to talk for the Rose City Astronomers and at PSU's Aerospace Society in Spring 2017. Here's my 25-min talk and some Q and A at the end. All of this material is being worked into my upper-undergraduate / graduate-level text "Principles of Space Anthropology: Establishing a Science of Human Space Settlement" (Springer 2018).

Chilly Times

A snow and ice basting of downtown Portland has closed everything down. Walking the streets, when I inhale the icy air and smell the ice, and hear the crunches underfoot, I'm transported back to many snowy places. Today I thought about my first expedition to Arctic Alaska in 2007. What a place! I had a -70F windchill one day, the wind found a gap in my neoprene facemask and slashed at my skin like a knife!