Continuing engineering failure analysis of social systems re technology

(Continued from http://kestsgeojedc.blogspot.com/2011/10/failure-analysis-of-lack-of-acceptance.html )

So far, the failure analysis of the social systems needed to establish early space colonization for humanity, have brought up factors of lack of congressional funding; judging the originator's credentials instead of judging the concepts themselves; lack of peer-membership with the potential evaluators; interference with existing business investments and career planning; unfamiliar technology to the evaluators; and the business choices of going for easy profit instead of the vision of early space colonization.

The 1972 Lunar space elevator concept, called the Mooncable, brought up those factors, as mentioned in the referenced post which is part of this overall message.

The next concept utilized for this failure analysis of needed social systems, relates to the the "KESTS to GEO" concept. So the last part of the preceding post is repeated here, as it is part of the description of what was tried and how failure was the result.

The second example for this kind of overall system failure analysis, is my effort to gain interest in my concept for rapid expansion into high Earth orbit, initially with the purpose of building abundant Solar Power Satellites to provide plentiful clean energy to nations around the world. This concept would bypass the Space Elevator's severe limitations, yet be able to do the same efficient access to high earth orbit, probably even more capably too. It would use the outward force of internal centrifugal force to balance the weight of the structure in the planetary gravitational field, instead of utilizing strength of materials to do the job.

I created this "KESTS to GEO" concept - acronym for "Kinetic Energy Supported Transportation Structure to Geostationary Earth Orbit" - to bypass the problem with the Earth Space Elevator concept, that of the lack of a material strong enough for its mass to support its own weight between GEO and the ground. I was keenly aware of this problem, having thought of the earth space elevator idea in 1969 - not the first person to do so, it turned out - then realized that the tensile strength to density ratio problem that really made a problem for the concept. (However, that effort later enabled my 1971-1972 creation of the Mooncable concept.) So I constantly sought other ways to have large scale access of earth orbital space.

The early 1980's concepts of Keith Lofstrom's Launch Loop rocket lift to the fringes of the atmosphere by a trapezoid shaped tethered out-flung loop of continuous material, and Rod Hyde's "StarBridge" vertical tower to the fringes of the atmosphere, supported by electrodynamic drag of high velocity paramagnetic beryllium disks flung upward inside the structure, excited my hopes for early large scale space colonization in my time; even Earl Smiths' "Texas and Universe Railroad" concept of an out-flung expandable iron belt from the earth surface to GEO, although had some major flaws in it including that it would not go to GEO if anchored in the high latitude of Texas, got me to do my first speech supporting those concepts, as well as my Mooncable space elevator concept, to the National Commission on Space in 1985. But to no avail, the Commission's report did not mention any of these things.

I mulled over the why-nots for a few years, discovering the major faults within each of those systems, and finally figured out how to combine all those concepts and add some new components, to make what appeared a workable large scale ground-to-GEO access space transportation structure of high efficiency, supported by the outward force of high velocity armatures circulating throughout the quasi-elliptical hoop around the Earth, connecting the equatorial surface to GEO. The materials and technology were well within the contemporary capability.

But the problem remained, of how I, as still an unknown in the field, could get this concept into the awareness of those who could take it to the next steps. About that time, I had gotten connected to the GEnie Spaceport Library, via my 300 baud modem connected to my long-obsolete Adam Coleco computer; as always, I lived on the edge of poverty, earning a living as an engineering technician in electronics; I worked for a small car alarm manufacturer at the time. Finally I could get the attention to my Mooncable concept and my new KESTS to GEO concept, I thought, through the GEnie network, connecting with other space enthusiasts involved with technology.

Even the GEnie Network was sponsored by General Electric, a large company who could possibly be able to build much of the KESTS to GEO system, I thought. I posted the initial insights there in 1988, and had largely fleshed it out in 1989, posting many files in the GEnie Spaceport Library.

But the reaction I got as a result was lots of angry replies, not involving technology, but bringing up other issues that readers would have to wade through before getting to the technical parts of the chat strings back then.

It took me a long time to realize that the KESTS to GEO concept would obsolete the ground rocket launch vehicle industry, on which these folks based their futures. No wonder the anger.

But clearly they were only interested in their personal fortunes, not the vision of large scale economical access and utilization of high earth orbit, and the large scale access of the Lunar environment and Mars' moons and asteroids, all now potentially in the near future, instead of something that would only have to withstand the test of real physical construction and usage generations later, as were the other forms of space colonization views as based on rocket systems alone.

A general pattern seems to be forming as I write here: the wideness of the vision of the evaluator, controls the trend of the resulting decision. If the evaluator was not fitting the concept into the wide vision of extending humanity into space colonies, then the criteria would be based on such things as the concept's potential effects on the evaluator's career, the corporate business potentials, the disruption to existing personal investments such as into petrochemical energy sources so as to gain personal wealth that way, effect on esteem from non-peer level concept offerings, and potential effects on international interactions. Thus what seems to be a failure of social systems, is simply reduced to success at supporting continuance of other considerations. Not looking to early space colonization, why disrupt existing plans for enabling that to happen.

In the KESTS to GEO enabled SPS case, done by the pointing out of the essential nature of large scale worldwide energy sources that are not primarily based on burning of petrochemicals in the air, simply stimulated efforts to create "green" energy sources and transportation systems, from existing technologies of wind, photovoltaics, wave energy, nuclear, and geothermal energy sources; maintaining the hydroelectric dams, and electric cars.

Such a diversity of energy sources is important for a resilient energy supply. Yet since these "green" energy sources are not producing more than a small fraction of the nation's energy needs; we have to burn coal aplenty to provide the vast majority of our daily energy usage.

The concept of building Solar Power Satellites in GEO, adequate to supply the vast majority of civilization's energy needs on into the future, enabled by building the KESTS to GEO transportation structure from ground up to GEO, is still being intensely avoided even now in 2011, some 22 years since the concept was fairly fleshed out in 1989, and long enough to have developed working structures built between equatorial ground and GEO by now, and a few prototype Solar Power Satellites of operational capacity already built and being used to supply all the energy the transportation structure system needs itself, as well as supplying gigawatts of energy to the power grid.

While the failure to implement this is a failure to be able to provide plentiful non-petrochemical energy for civilization along with large scale space colonization in GEO and on the Moon, it is not a social failure in the sense that it enable continuance of business-as-usual, in the comfort zone of those who make things happen. And, there are fewer big goofs made, when people stick to the familiar; never-mind the lack of preparation for the needs of the future of civilization. There is also the social quirk that people generate far more emotional energy when things fail as they do when things work fine; witness the major agony over the crash of the Challenger, yet no comparable rejoicing across the nation in the many successful flights that the Challenger Space Shuttle made before that. Goofs cost the doer far more than successes are rewarding to the doer, in other words. Risk not taken, means not risking condemnation due to failure.

But, this is analogous to when a man fails to approach a woman in hopes of courting her, for fear of rejection by her. No loving has a chance of happening. In this case, we not only have no chance of life preservation diversification via space colonies, but also we are stuck with our planetary oxygen being converted into unbreathable carbon dioxide, in order to have electrical energy lightening our homes, and our massive cars get pushed around in the commute each day.

So let's look in more detail as to how the KESTS to GEO concept was shot down, and why. Each factor can be a factor in extrapolating what will happen in subsequent efforts to revive the concept, as well as in new forms of space access and utilization concepts.

The initial efforts to gain awareness and interest in the KESTS to GEO concept are described above, utilizing the GEnie Information Network.

Other avenues were also explored, however. A visionary article on the concept was published in a non-technical magazine called "Meditation Magazine" in 1990. A talk was given to the Los Angeles Chapter of the International Society of System Scientists, on the subject of KESTS to GEO in 1994. A description was given as part of a RAND study seeking new space systems concepts. The early vision of KESTS to GEO envisioned its high energy efficiency, high capacity continuous operation between ground and GEO, to enable a couple of prototype space colonies in GEO, modeled after the Stanford Torus 10,000 person space settlement design of 1975, originally intended for construction in the distant future at L-5 built out of Lunar materials; but KESTS to GEO would enable them built in GEO without first creating a huge Lunar infrastructure. So it was also proposed to build a classical wheel-type space station in LEO, totally built teleoperated until assembled in LEO, before the first manned presence would be needed there; this concept was called "Centristation"and would be a 100-200-person R&D habitat to work out many of the interactions of a near-self-sustaining 1-g environment in actual space conditions. The wheel structure would first be built on the ground and debugged there as much as possible; each of the component modules would be designed and built for use as their own fuel tank during launch. Thus it was titled "Wet launch of Prefab habitat Modules" when I presented a peer-reviewed technical paper on the Centristation concept to the Space Studies Institute at Princeton, NJ, in 1995.

May I mention the factors that this was my first attendance to such a space conference and knew little about doing such a thing; I was still very nervous about public speaking, having only done the one testimony to the NCS in 1985 as mentioned before; and that in my impoverished state - employed as an electronics technician at a car alarm manufacturing company at the time - all I had was a 386SX computer running DOS at home so I had to format the document to SSI specs, using poster freeware to make the camera-ready copy of the paper. This paper got published by SSI/AIAA in 1995.

Such a wheel- space station in LEO was in line with Gerard O'Neil's wonderful vision for space colonization that was the lifeblood of the Space Studies Institute.

But the KESTS to GEO concept was not in line with that SSI vision; it would bypass the need for an initial Lunar infrastructure and colonies built at L-5 which would build the Solar Power Satellites; KESTS to GEO would build the SPS out of earth materials, economically brought up for construction in GEO by the electrically powered and supported transportation structure. In other words, I did not realize I was trying to propose something that would wipe out their grand vision's purpose for happening.

Thus it is no wonder I was ridiculed and booed out after I gave my technical paper to SSI on KESTS to GEO in 1997, naively thinking them to be focused on getting SPS built in GEO and space colonization to happen much quicker than their existing vision would. I thought they would welcome my vision with open arms; but in reality I was seen as a disruptor, and invader, something to be stamped out of existence.

It was easily seen that if enough orbiting satellites and space junk were put into the space between ground and GEO, that continuous structures like Space Elevators and KESTS to GEO Space Escalators increasingly become at risk for collision and thus destruction. Stall these transportation structures long enough, and they would not get built because of this, thus assuring that rocketry business would continue on abundantly, instead of becoming obsolete. And so they did that. And that is the situation now. We are stuck with rockets, the incredibly inefficient rocket launch vehicle access to earth orbit and elsewhere.

Nonetheless, there is still potential for building KESTS to GEO, if mankind chose to do so.

Anyway, after getting the boot from Princeton, I nursed my wounds but saw no flaw in my technical concept itself; so I submitted a technical paper to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) space conference in 1998. It got rejected. I rewrote it and it finally got accepted for presentation and publication in 2000, and thus became the first peer-reviewed formal technical paper hardcopy published on the KESTS to GEO concept. Two years later, I wrote a more complete paper on the subject and presented it to the ASCE 2002 space conference. But clearly there was some interference going on; NASA had sponsored someone to make a spectacular proposal saying that the Earth Space Elevator was ready to build, if money were available to do so. And thus no one was interested my concept when something else could be built right away, that would do a similar job. Of course, we now know that it was not ready to build at all; but the timing was just right to shoot down the budding KESTS to GEO concept. In 2004 a third technical paper on KESTS to GEO was presented my me, and the paper published, but clearly it was being ditched by the rocket launch business interests who freshly had been given contracts for the manned Mars project by NASA.

I began to realize that NASA itself was actively against KESTS to GEO. Impossible as that seemed to me to be; was not NASA devoted to advancing space utilization including space colonization?

But, rocketry systems were what NASA folks were experts in. Not some weird electric motor completely encircling the Earth; their academic and corporate expertise would largely be obsolete and they would have to go back to college, maybe to fail this time. Nope; keep business as usual.

And after all, NASA has the mandate to enable America to stay ahead of the Space Race, to protect America from possible lunar bases built on the Moon aimed at us, like Cuba back in the 1960's that was what NASA was created to do, and now it has the task of maintaining that technical expertise of manpower and manufacturing. The scientific folks can do relatively safer robotic missions to Mars and the other bodies hurtling around in our solar system, keeping their technical expertise up through that kind of exercise, and also happening to see what the potentials are out there. But space colonization is not in NASA's mandate. Solar Power Satellites are not in NASA's mandate. Congress sets NASA's purpose. NASA is just doing its job. And, the prospect of them having to build a KESTS to GEO most likely is scary to them; too different and too many goofs inevitable, like in early rocket development.

The KESTS to GEO concept would provide a means for electrically lifting goods and personnel from ground up into GEO and back, potentially very energy efficiently. The amount of energy added to each pound of mass lifted from the equator up into GEO is only 7,300 KWh, or 73 cents per pound, if at a energy cost of 10 cents per KWh. Lifting an average person up into GEO would therefore add the amount of energy to his mass, about the same as the cost of a trip from coast to coast by airplane. Building things in GEO could become very low cost and rapid instead of the incredible cost and effort of rocket launch to there, as is required now.

KESTS to GEO can take many forms. For example, KESTS could also be built for ground to LEO access, or even be used in circular form, linking pressure-supported towers located around the planet along the equator, for highly efficient intercontinental travel. But the most useful form would be from equatorial ground up into GEO, where something will stay put, with no intermediate use of a rocket propelled vehicle or other free-flying vehicle. Walk onto KEST on the ground, walk off into GEO.

The KESTS to GEO structure would not have its weight supported by the counterbalance of a weight swung around by the Earth's rotation, as would be done in the case of the anchored tether Space Elevator concept.

Instead, it would provide its own internal centrifugal force in the direction opposing Earth's gravitational field everywhere, but constrained high velocity armature segments endlessly circulating within the hollow hoop structure at velocities several times that of the orbital velocity along that path.

Thus the surplus outward centrifugal force supports the static weight of the earth-stationary part of the structure.

The whole transportation structure is essentially a synchronous electric motor. In its primary form, all the energy is input to it at the ground terminal, by electromagnetic accelerators synchronously re-accelerating each armature segment as it passes through the accelerator; the armature segment then coasts all around the planet within the hollow hoop, back again the the earth terminal accelerator where its energy losses along the way are replenished over and over again. Millions of such armature segments comprise the high velocity mass that provides the outward push against the hoop structure, supporting its weight and the weight of its live loads.

The armature segments' upward-bound mass stream are also configured, at least in part, for being electrodynamically braked against by coupling to captive spacecraft, thus lifting the spacecraft up between ground and GEO; thus the vehicles carry no energy source nor need any beamed to them by lasers.

The captive spacecraft carrying construction materials and personnel up from ground to GEO, would move continuously up one side and down the other side gently back to Earth. Counter-rotating mass streams within the hoop are needed for this, note, laterally coupled by the constraints on their inductive extreme high velocity maglev tracks. The continuous lift of materials up to GEO make rapid construction of large scale Solar Power Satellites possible.

It also make s possible the construction of spaceports in GEO, where rocket components would be electrically lifted efficiently up to GEO, where the reaction-engined spacecraft would head off to space, already 91% up out of the Earth's gravitational energy well. Returning to Earth is just as efficient, no re-entry energy to be dealt with.

This would enable a whole new paradigm about civilization's relationship with space at the vast resources there of room to grow, material to be found, energy from the sun 24/7, and opportunity to establish space colonies abundantly in high earth orbit as well as on the Moon, Phobos, Mars and asteroids, for starters.

But we chose not to do this. Business as usual is lots easier. We have kids to put through college, etc.

In 2005 I naively also tried presenting papers to Space Elevator conferences. It was as popular as a Ford salesman babbling away at a General Motors new car showroom. They published three of my KESTS to GEO related technical papers, but they somehow ungrouped the graphics so they are meaningless, useless for communicating the concepts.

I finally got the message. Corporate aerospace does not like KESTS to GEO.

A friend who understands the world more than I do, urged me to write science fiction about my concepts, instead of technical papers. I at first resented that, fearing people already call my concepts science fiction, not having been built yet. But, eventually I discovered that writing high tech science fiction about my concepts was cathartic, finally living out the building and usage of such transportation systems involving Centristation, the Space Elevator, KESTS to GEO and Circular KESTS. It got to be fun and interesting to do so, and was lots easier than traveling to space conferences and coping with public speaking tying to convince hostile people of the worth of my concepts. I had to learn how to format the sci fi novels so they could be printed as paperbacks, and made available for sale at Amazon, but nobody buys them, nobody knows they are there, and Amazon does not bring them up in title searches. I have also made most of the novels into eBook format too, via Smashwords.

What more can I do to help space colonization happen?

In evaluating this kind of effort for what caused the failure to get these concepts to be made physical, so that the larger goal of establishing living systems off-planet can be achieed, some factors need to be considered. There is a characteristic integration among the pieces of the concepts, different from team designs or design by committee; for example, although the Centristation in LEO project would be built using over 200 launches of a three-part reuseable teleoperated launch and docking system, using conventional chemical rockets, and its purpose is to get advance R&D done for the construction of 10,000-person Stanford-Torus type space colonies in GEO, that it still needs the KESTS to GEO already built to at least a small lifting capacity girth, or at least built to access LEO from the ground. This is because of the need to staff it with some 200 people, perhaps as many as a thousand people. It would take the transportation capacity of a KESTS to put that many people into orbit in a short time, and to get them back again in a hurry if need be. The orbit of the Centristation would be chosen to not intersect with the KESTS to GEO. The characteristic integration of such large scale projects is the result of both a predisposition by the individual, plus the very long term obsessive pursuit of a subject for achievement that is characteristic of someone with Asperger's Syndrome. In this case, consider that large scale earth to space transportation structures were sought and found as early as 1969; and some some 42 years of mulling over the basic transportation problem having been done even since then. It is the result of much of a lifetime obsession with the subject. Both conscious and subconscious mind ever at least partially looking for hints of pieces to the solution of the puzzle the Asperger person seeks to build.

Yet the naive Asperger person believes that humanity will accept him/her finally, when a successful concept design is produced. Like the fable of the rejected "different" Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer at Christmas time, the goal is to come through to save the day. Such fantasies are rarely realized in the real world, however; the real world just usually dismisses the Asperger's great creation as somehow unworthy; or if not, the Asperger must have stolen it from someone of high academic or corporate stature. This is because of the non-Asperger's nature of ever striving to prove he/she is better than... somebody. The Asperger with the concept is considered a show-off, trying to be better-than you; therefore, must be put down, in order to restore everybody's status. Such petty processes are busy influencing what happens to the concept; and will normally result in either someone else stepping forward and declaring it is their idea, or someone else's idea, thus the concept originator is righteously put in his/her place; and the concept is now loose and available for all the regular folks to use without involving the originator anymore. (Unfortunately they usually do a poor job of utilizing it, settling for merely one implementation of it that makes them money.)

For some reason, the group psychology needed for some corporation to form a team to develop such a concept to bring it into reality, needs to thusly pry rights to the concept from the one who has spent much of a lifetime creating it, by trickery like that; it shows that they are smarter after all. The concept is thought to be completely the property of those who are in the team and the team's financiers; and indeed patents are not awarded to the originator of the concept that describes how to build something, it is awarded to whoever follows the instructions and thus puts it into practice before others do.

Yet the spread of new concepts need to be done. Like the story of Archimedes, having long struggled with the very complex problem of how to calculate the exact volume of a complex metal object volume so as to be able to correctly measure its density and therefore determine the type of metal of which it is made, having noticed in a bathtub how the water rises in exact displacement of his complex body's shape, he made the connection that the same thing could be applied to the complex shape of, say, a gold jewelry item; simply measure the height of the liquid it displaces, inside a constant cross sectional area container. The integrated volume is found as easy as that. And so this technique was eventually communicated widely, so that all people might utilize it. The concept becomes part of civilization's tools.

So, to seek engineering failure analysis of social systems, and find ways to resolve the problems, it is suggested that people seek more understanding, and make it available to others, I suppose, like in this writing.

Jim Cline 20111028 Ephrata, WA, USA

Tar sands, pipelines, and big-picture decisions

The Sierra Club is having a campaign to stop the oil pipeline from Canada down to refineries here in the US; the complaint is partly about the environmentally-damaging source from tar sands, too. (Or would we like fracking contamination of our drinking water?)

Normally I would stand with environmental protection concerns. But after much thought about the bigger picture, on this one I abstain from the vote of participation. It is the bigger picture that must be consulted.

The reasoning is as follows:

We Americans have built our lifestyles around cars and trucks. This consumes an incredible amount of oil for the energy to propel these vehicles, that we send huge amounts of money overseas to get more oil, tens of billions per year.

Much of my life I too consumed gasoline in my cars as if it were in endless supply and of our own produce. But nowadays, people know better, and have the choice to moderate their petrochemical fuel consumption.

But they generally choose not to. Instead of buying their teenagers bicycles to use to go to school, the soccer moms fire up the family SUV to take them to school and bring them back in style. To go get a couple items to finish off dinner prep, again fire up the SUV or other gas hog vehicle to make the trip there and back, the foreign-bought fuel pushing the multi-thousand-pound vehicle to grocery and back, with the half pound of grocery food treasure. The local Walmart has a huge supply of bicycles for sale, along with basic supplies like helmets. But when I put on my backpack and bicycle to Walmart to get groceries and supplies, mine is usually the only bicycle parked on the parking rack there at the store.

Point is, we Americans could be doing lots more to reduce our oil consumption, yet we are not doing that. We still live it up, burn the gas, to heck with the nation and world problem it makes.

Thus we need more and more oil to feed this problem. There are security problems about the supply from overseas, as was so well experienced in the gas lines during the gs shortages of the early 1970's. Could happen again, even lots worse.

We have a better chance of protecting a pipeline from Canada to refineries in Texas, than to guarantee endless oil from overseas.

We have not been able to wean ourselves from excessive use of oil for energy, despite being aware of the problem for decades. Sure, it is hard to change ones ways, even a little bit. But life is ever changing; we constantly adapt. But to the energy problem, we just have not adapted.

Even lots of politicians say there really is no oil supply problem, no CO2 building up in the atmosphere due to our industrial civilization, altering the basic energy balance from the Sun. It wasn't taught them in school; therefore it does not exist. It is all a plot by the politicians on the other side of the ball court.

America must have a continuous supply of energy, and lots of it. We are making some success such as some solar panels up and a few wind turbines up, but we are stuck on the notion that it has to be cheaper to get energy from wind and solar, before we will abandon coal and oil as our primary source of energy. Energy to run our factories and light our homes and swirl our washing machines. The idea of building wind power infrastructure when it is in competition with other energy sources, is ridiculous to those who do not comprehend that even some energy from local sources is better than none, when things have gone sour.

Can we continue to guarantee that things do not go sour on us re invasion by another country, simply by reminding them that we have enough nukes to destroy all life on earth including them? Well, we cringe that North Korea or Iran may make a nuke or two, that we don't control. Hardly enough to destroy the world like we can do, but enough to make a terrible mess of a big city or two, or vaporize one of our great aircraft carriers at a strategic moment. Yet perhaps the bigger risk is that we will be conquered by starving us of critical supplies, and energy is the most obvious one. All energy self-sufficiency we can arrange as fast as possible, is a better protection than waving our world-destroying pile of nukes, to guarantee we get enough energy to power our lives.

It is abundantly proven that we cannot curb our demand for petrochemical energy sources, in great quantity. It is a choice thing, as pointed out. Therefore we need to do second-best, and that appears to involve more secure and diverse petrochemical sources, such as the Canadian tar sands pipeline.

Actually it is "third best" in my opinion. We could have already solved this energy problem, if we had taken on the task of building the Kinetic Energy Supported Transportation Structure to Geostationary Earth Orbit project, well outlined back in 1989, plenty of time to have developed it and have it operational used to lift construction materials to be building abundant Solar Power Satellites beaming totally clean electrical energy to America, in quantities enough to start shutting down coal fired power plants by now. (Sure, call me a crank, a loner, lots of bad names, reaffirming the rightness of business as usual. I just mention it here, as it rightfully belongs in the energy picture. Period.) And sure, wind turbines ans solar panels on the ground, are pitifully weak compared to the enormous energy demands of the industrialized world. This KESTS to GEO transportation system and the SPS energy sources could have well solved the problem, but it was not in the hands of the wealthy and powerful energy producers, so it was suppressed and had no chance to be done by now. And sure, they will eventually take the project over as if totally their own, when petrochemical sources peter out. Is lots easier to do that control game. But lots of suffering for humanity has to happen first, in the profit-controlled scenario.

Anyway my tirade about "KESTS to GEO" over, back to the current apparent scenario. We need petrochemical energy for our cars and trucks. They do not go very well without gas in them. Compromises need to be made. We chose not to go the KESTS to GEO solar satellite power route. We have done foot-dragging re the wind turbine and solar panel route for even a significant share of the energy needs. We are stuck with petrochemicals as our energy primary source, for a long time.

A pipeline from Canada's tar sands to our Texas refineries, seems a more secure supply route for a significant supply of our petrochemicals to move our cars around back and forth to our jobs and back home.

Beside the offshore oil sources, particularly in the middle-eastern areas, we are dependent on lots of oil pumped from ocean oil rig sites. In a big conflict, do you realize what happens if the other nation(s) use subs to chop those oil lines up from the ocean bottom, with no chance to shut their blowout protection system? The environmental disaster would be incredible, but right now since we are talking about fuel for our cars nevermind the environmental consequences, think of all that oil not getting to our refineries so that soccer-mom can drive little Suzie to school in the huge SUV?

Part of long term survival involves shifting from hand-to-mouth little-picture attention, to wider view big-picture attention in which our many little pictures all are all laced together.

America needs to have her greatness not so much on her ability to march off to war to save the world, but to save the world in other ways. Like, adequate clean energy to power our lives. Or if we continue to be unwilling to be part of the solution, at least not be so much a part of the problem.

Anything you can do I can do better

There is a lively song from the musical "Oklahoma" that goes "Anything you can do, I can do better!" In the musical it is just an opening for a young man and woman to show each others' stuff, as they grow from puberty into adulthood's interests.

Yet now in my quest to discover "what people really do do," it seems that the phrase "anything you can do, I can do better" is a major thing among people's interactions, explaining lots of behavior.

I noticed that a long time ago, watching many of my friends.

Yet it did not seem to be anything I could find in my own self. I occasionally hypothesized about the phenomenon, to myself. It might explain lots about what I observed in the world of people.

I tentatively concluded that, to the "normal" person, lacking an inner measuring stick, that it was a way of evaluating their own performance, by measuring against what their neighbor was doing.

It thus explained the urge to run foot races, race cars, even the generally bloodless mock battles of team sports.

That means of evaluating performance thus was not tied to actual achievement capability. It only required one be better-than the other person, to show OK-ness. It was not tied to the successful doing of what it took for the group, the species, to survive and thrive. It therefore could easily miss the boat and never know it.

I now am beginning to suspect that this is what is responsible for America to be unraveling in recent times.

The self-correcting feedback loop is tied to the wrong parameter.

And it also explains the strange response I got back starting 23 years ago when I publicly proposed my KESTS to GEO concept to save civilization. The aerospace studs merely saw me as attempting to show them up.

And thus they responded, instead of welcoming me and my concepts to the endeavor of extending civilization into space in the near future, to instead of looking big and impressive and totally concerned with the future of mankind - the distant future, that is - letting the present times coast along continuing to give them the cushy prestigious life, obscuring what I had proposed.

So it was an "anything that Jim Cline could do, we important aerospace folks can appear to do better" kind of response attitude. Merely a rivalry game, that was their duck soup; something they could win with one hand tied behind their back and blindfolded, how great they were. That seems to explain a lot. It also means I really misjudged them. No helpers, they.

But it is not that they are bad people. It is merely their knee-jerk way of relating.

Figuring out what happened back then

I was one of the many who independently came up with the general concept of what is now called the Space Elevator. Circa 1969 for me; later I learned others including the incredible A C Clarke also had gone that path. We all eventually independently figured out there was no known or anticipated material adequate for making the tether to just be able to support its own weight between ground and GEO.

But by 1972 I had determined that a lunar tether through L-1 could be made of space-rated fiberglass in a constant-stress-cross-section tapered form - it had taken me two months of my spare time and filling up a notebook with my hand calculations, when only a slide rule was available to me - and had submitted that result as an informal proposal to NASA - who replied back thanks but they were totally busy and financially tied up with ending the Apollo program and building the Space Shuttle. And the subject got dropped. I later had made some efforts to communicate the concept via the L-5 News but I just got a reply that they would not consider it unless it had been published by AIAA first, closing that door. I then also basically abandoned my concept of a lunar tether space elevator through L-1, which I called the "Mooncable." Even though it seemed an ideal follow up to the Apollo program at the time, building up a Lunar industrial infrastructure based on supplying Lunar-sourced and L-1 processed construction material to Earth markets, particularly foamed steel. But, it just was not going to happen.

(I was too naive to comprehend that the Mercury-Gemni-Apollo NASA program was solely truly a military-sponsored "space race" to get to the Moon before the Soviets were able to build rocket bases there aimed at America. When that goal was reached, they had no further reason to maintain a Lunar capability.)

But ever since realizing circa 1970 that earth space elevator tether material severe restraints prevented it from being an alternative to rocket launch vehicle access from ground to space, for building SPS in GEO, I sought ways to do the same function as a space elevator, but somehow bypassing the strength to density tether materials problem.

And in 1988 I got a glimmer of how to do that, and by 1989 it was fleshed out to a fairly well integrated concept, with lots of potential for working and doing the job of economically being used to finally build those solar power satellites in GEO that I foresaw even then as vital for civilization so as to avoid the petrochemical hydrocarbon problems we now endure.

The idea was basically to generate the support force to balance the force of gravity, by making a planet-encircling hoop structure that generated its own outward centrifugal force around the planet, to balance the inward force of gravity on the structure and its live loads. It could be made into essentially a synchronous motor in function. An eccentric hoop around the planet, its earth-motionless stator part enclosing a hard vacuum in the part of the path where the high velocity motor armature segments circulated through the atmosphere portion of the path. Some of the upward-moving armature momentum would be coupled over to lift captive spacecraft from ground up to GEO, and gently return them back to the ground later; thus with no fuel to lift, would be a very efficient transportation process. All electrically powered, and eventually even that provided directly from solar energy received in GEO by solar power satellites up there.

A very clean self-sufficient extremely efficient transportation system to orbit from the ground, operating 24/7, without stress to the fossil fuel derived energy sources, once started.

I figured out how to calculate the energy given to payload mass by moving it from earth equatorial surface up into GEO, adapting some equations I had painstakingly developed in my 1970 efforts on the Space Elevator concept, as being 7,300 KWh per pound mass; which at a cost of electricity of 10 cents per KWh is only 73 cents per pound. Lots could be built in GEO at anywhere near that cost. Besides, the transportation system would power itself once it had a solar power satellite in GEO beaming power down to power the KESTS to GEO itself.

I tossed the concept over to the space community via the NSS's "Spaceport Library" newly formed on the GEnie net, starting in 1988. I thought the space community would be deliriously overjoyed at the prospect of finally being able to build those SPS in GEO without having to wait for "unobtanium" material be be created for tether space elevators.

But I also realized that it is a very complex world, and there could be irrational efforts to block KESTS to GEO. What I did not anticipate was how very intensive that effort would be, how cleverly done.

I had merely thought that the project would involve all the people of the earth ceasing their backbiting and territorial battles, to pitch in to get this new opportunity going to help them all in the relatively near future. But what happened is, that they never got to learn about that opportunity.

Looking back, I can see what probably happened. In the incredible melee of human turmoil that somehow gets our civilization done by fits and starts, the folks who could have made KESTS to GEO happen starting back then, saw their long term investments in coal and oil, and nuclear, on which they planned to have their endless cushy life, would be reduced enormously if Solar Power Satellites in GEO were practical and near-future. Plus the rocket folks would have to go back to college to learn about electric motor technology; they already had prestigious and cushy lifestyle jobs, why rock the boat. So they all pitched in to finance distractions to sap away any who might stumble onto my KESTS to GEO efforts and offer to help out. These "distractions" included corporate front space advocacy groups whose claim was to "enable everyone go to space" (as KESTS to GEO claimed to be able to do) and also hire academic-type research to make dazzling projections of how to reach the future - but with no mention of KESTS to GEO nor anything near-future that would rock the boat of their existing petrochemical and nuclear stranglehold on the world's energy supply; thus pretending to be committed to the future of humanity.

It worked. It has kept the financial status quo solid for these past 23 years and no sign of it changing. Besides, in the meantime they got enormous numbers of below-GEO satellites put in place multinationally, which would risk collision with a KESTS to GEO, thus blocking future opportunities. All to protect their selfish wealth cravings.

Bear in mind I realized this could happen, or at least the turmoil of humanity well known to mess things up at times. I did not want KESTS to GEO to be built if there were significant elements hostile to it. The project had to be an "everybody pitches in to get it done, so all could greatly benefit," kind of project; or it ought to not be built. In the hands of irresponsible people, most anything can be turned to harmful purposes, and KESTS to GEO was not immune either. It had to be a project by humanity for humanity, or not done at all.

As you know, it was a "not done at all," happening.

Most likely the big oil-coal-nuclear folks of the younger kind, have been covertly preparing to build KESTS to GEO, but not until way past the fossil fuel peak curve and nuclear curve's wealth to them has been passed. Then they plan new great glory and power and wealth for themselves as always, using this new KESTS to GEO mechanism. Long after I am gone, of course, and without consulting me.

Thus I continue to publish my KESTS to GEO concept in best detail as I can, realizing only those writings and drawings will be there to guide those who eventually get hired to build it. Hopefully they will not goof it up too much, if I can get all the factors shown and optional variations and mechanisms to explore.

Let's see, one other thing. Looking back, I can see where at times I had great loyalty to people who turned out to only intend me harm. The severity of my Aspergers naive inability to comprehend people's doings apparently is worse than I could guess. So, among my life's lessons to myself, is that factor too, in the huge mix of people's doings.

Trillion dollar debt and human smarts working on the wrong things

This is one of those blog posts that is most likely going to get hidden from being found. Lots of powerful folks won't want it to be known. But here goes anyway:
Ref: "A National Debt Of $14 Trillion? Try $211 Trillion" https://www.npr.org/2011/08/06/139027615/a-national-debt-of-14-trillion-try-211-trillion

America could have been starting to be a major energy exporter to the world as of several years ago.

The energy source: solar energy gathered in Geostationary Earth Orbit. The technology was proposed in the 1960's and has improved since then, Called "Satellite Solar Power Stations" or "Solar Power Satellites" most of the time. Sometimes called "Space-Based Solar Power", more generally.

The obstacle has been the transportation costs to deliver, build and maintain the Solar Power Satellites (SPS) in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) some 22,300 miles above the earth's equator. Along with the passively-shielded habitats for the construction and maintenance workers in GEO, a radiation plagued place.

Conventional rocket technology is vastly too expensive, and too energy-inefficient to do the job; and that has blocked it the past four decades and more.

The concept of the anchored tether "Space Elevator" was revived in 2002, to lower transportation costs, but the effort has gone in circles, primarily still having the problem of strength-to-density ratio of tether material. Other concerns focus on collapse modes in case of structural failure of the linear tether, which would be supported by the centrifugal force on mass out beyond GEO, analogous to a tetherball being swung by the Earth's rotation. But a solution to this problem was proposed as far back as 1988, but was suppressed and did not get published as a peer reviewed technical paper until 2000. It is probably not coincidental that the old "Space Elevator" concept was brought up suddenly in 2002, presented as ready-to-build-now, and thus erasing any interest in the alternative technological concept. Good business strategy for the rich & powerful whose wealth is based on the coal, petrochemical, nuclear and rocket business-as-usual; but very bad for America.

Yes, I am talking about the "KESTS to GEO" transportation structure concept, an eccentric hoop-shaped electric motor structure linking the earth's equator and GEO above the opposite side of the earth. It would not be supported by the planet's rotation, but by centrifugal force it would generate within itself. thus it would not have the tether's strength-to-density problem at all, and be able to be built of conventional materials. It would also use some of the upward-moving motor armature momentum to drag payload-carrying captive spacecraft up from ground to GEO, thus no need for rockets in the transportation process, nor even beaming megawatt lasers to power climbers, as is being explored re tether "Space Elevators."

This "KESTS to GEO" (Kinetic Energy Supported Transportation Structure to Geostationary Earth Orbit) concept was proposed in 1988 and fleshed out by 1989, although has evolved even better over the past 23 years. (See the KESTS to GEO website, http://www.kestsgeo.com for lots more details.) Yet if it had been accepted as worthy of development in 1989, it most likely would have had development versions of KESTS to GEO built in place a dozen years from then, and have operational versions in place and lifting materials for building SPS in GEO a half dozen years from then. So we would have had the past five years to be building prototypes and then operational SPS in GEO, and already be bringing in income from the sale of SPS-sourced electrical energy delivered to the ground to rectennas places in appropriate places around the world. We could even be taking the energy crisis load off Japan right now, as a just-in-time technology brought on line, instead of shipping them more coal to burn in the air.

SPS, as a solar sourced 24/7 electrical energy supply, gathered up there in GEO where the energy is more than seven times as much as gathered on the average surface of the Earth, would be rapidly taking over the job of supplying the enormous energy needs of a developing advanced world civilization.

The question of nuclear power and coal-power, and the consumption of oxygen from the air we and everything else breathes, and CO2 increasing with its oceanic damage already ongoing from increasing acidity disruption to calcium-gathering creatures like coral and shellfish and foraminifera, would be now slowing.

But the point being focused on here is the financial aspect. The sale of this energy would be providing America with vast taxable income, both domestic and from abroad. And our own energy costs would be dropping rapidly.

There would be no massive national debt as per the referenced article, because with the KESTS to GEO and SPS clearly in the vision for the future long before the publication of the 2000 article, there would have been a different political party in when 2001's 9/11 fracas bait happened, and no trillions spent in the chase of one man, who was safely hidden in neither land we threw our military money onto the desolate desert wastes.

With abundant clean energy coming online for the past couple of years already, and massive energy supplies coming on rapidly to be sold worldwide, the demand for technology applications would be increasing, and the unemployment rate very low, and people not being forced into retirement when they could still be working in satisfying ways, adding to the GDP, even if some only part time.

It would be a totally different situation now, and the prospects for the future getting better every day.

We can't turn back the clock; we can't un-ring the bell. But We can learn from our mistakes.

Or we can not learn from our mistakes; ever our choice. Which seems to still be happening. For the same reasons this post will get deep-sixed by the powers that be. They like things the way they are. And have aimed for them all along, and made them happen. And have the "necessary" things planned for the near future, too. All influence-power games. Human smarts working on the wrong things.

Grumping and whining

Most people would not have the problems I have re security of my intellectual property. You have no idea what it is like to stumble on an idea that would be a total game-changer in the world of giant corporate wealthy folks, who are extreme experts at controlling things.

After I discovered back in the mid-1980s when all my files on my ground commute transportation concept had been snatched from the manila folders in my file cabinet, and related files erased on my Adam computer, with no obvious trace anyone had been in my residence while I was gone, I began to realize the extreme expertness these folks have. Later I found they had been back, since they swiped the top page of all my copies of a magazine article I had written for submission to the L-5 News, re my 1972 Mooncable Project (Lunar space elevator) concept. The title page had my name and the recipients name, of course, and that was now all gone; the folders still looked fat without only the first page gone from each. And the ripping off has continued over the years, dragging in law enforcement at times, tricking them into helping via false accusations. I would generally characterize the "operators" as being bullies and masters of deception. Kind of folks one does not want to mess with. And they have been on top of me for at least … 1984-2010 … 26 years. It has become increasingly clear to me that they are not just after my intellectual property, my concepts, but also that they are intending to ruin me personally. And I live in poverty.

I realized that all I could do with my creative technological concepts, lacking security enough to gather stuff for a patent application and thus be able to get financing, was just to either let my brainchildren die with me, or to freely give them away to the world. Which is what I have been doing, such as with my Centristation (construction of wheel-type space station using prefab modules that are also used as teh fuel tanks for their own launch into orbit) and KESTS to GEO (hoop type centrifugally supported space escalator that obsoletes the anchored tether space elevator technique) and applications concepts. At least it levels the playing field, I hope, instead of having the concepts directed by those who would steal them from me, and thus would use the concepts probably wrongfully, to the detriment of civilization, instead for the betterment of civilization as I intended when creating the concepts.

I don't see any solution to the overall problem, considering the bottomless pocket paid snoops messing with me and my life. Paranoid-making. And sometimes apparently deliberately. It must be a fun game for some kinds of people.

What happened to the dream

Where did the dream go? Consider this quote from a NASA document, of some 35 years ago:

"We have put men on the Moon. Can people live in space? Can permanent communities be built and inhabited off the Earth? Not long ago these questions would have been dismissed as science fiction, as fantasy or, at best as the wishful thinking of men ahead of their times. Now they are asked seriously not only out of human curiosity, but also because circumstances of the times stimulate the thought that space colonization offers large potential benefits and hopes to an increasingly enclosed and circumscribed humanity.

"Permanent communities can be built and inhabited off the Earth. The following chapters present a detailed description of a system for the colonization of space. It is not the best system that can be devised; nor is it complete. Not all the important questions about how and why to colonize space have been posed. Of those that have, not all have been answered satisfactorily. Nevertheless, the 10-week summer study is the most thorough and comprehensive one made to date. On its basis space colonization appears to be technically feasible, while the obstacles to further expansion of human frontiers in this way are principally philosophical, political, and social rather than technological.

"The focus of the system is a space habitat where 10,000 people work, raise families, and live out normal human lives. Figure 1-1. [ http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/75SummerStudy/figure1.1.gif ] shows the wheel-like structure in which they live. This structure orbits the Earth in the same orbit as the Moon in a stable position that is equidistant from both Earth and Moon. This is called the Lagrangian libration point, L5. The habitat consists of a tube 130 m (427 ft) in diametral cross section bent into a wheel 1790 m (over 1 mi) in diameter. The people live in the ring-shaped tube which is connected by six large access routes (spokes) to a central hub where incoming spacecraft dock. These spokes are 15 m (48 ft) in diameter and provide entry and exit to the living and agricultural areas in the tubular region. To simulate Earth's normal gravity the entire habitat rotates at one revolution per minute about the central hub.

"Much of the interior of the habitat is illuminated with natural sunshine. The Sun's rays in space are deflected by a large stationary mirror suspended directly over the hub. This mirror is inclined at 45 degrees to the axis of rotation and directs the light onto another set of mirrors which, in turn, reflect it into the interior of the habitat's tube through a set of louvered mirrors designed to admit light to the colony while acting as a baffle to stop cosmic radiation. With the help of abundant natural sunshine and controlled agriculture, the colonists are able to raise enough food for themselves on only 63 ha (156 acres). The large paddle-like structure below the hub is a radiator by which waste heat is carried away from the habitat.

"Abundant solar energy and large amounts of matter from the Moon are keys to successfully establishing a community in space. Not only does the sunshine foster agriculture of unusual productivity, but also it provides energy for industries needed by the colony. Using solar energy to generate electricity and to power solar furnaces the colonists refine aluminum, titanium, and silicon from lunar ores shipped inexpensively into space. With these materials they are able to manufacture satellite solar power stations and new colonies. The power stations are placed in orbit around the Earth to which they deliver copious and valuable electrical energy. The economic value of these power stations will go far to justify the existence of the colony and the construction of more colonies...."

The document from which this is quoted was created some 35 years ago, titled NASA SP-413. (Its soft copy can be found at
http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/75SummerStudy/Table_of_Contents1.html )

What happened to this dream, created just a couple of years after the last of the Apollo moon adventures had left the Moon? NASA seems obsessed with just using rocketry to put things into space, perhaps because that is what they are familiar with, and is what their current adventures rely upon. Even their sponsorship of space elevator concerns seems just to prove how hard and inefficient that could be, such as the contests for climbing up a tether they have suspended from cranes or helicopters, contests to beam high powered lasers to supply energy for climbers up the dangling tether; but that is not the best way for a space elevator to work. But it does spin our wheels - thus preventing forward motion - regarding any effort in that direction, thus excusing continued total reliance on rocketry, nice familiar rocketry - maybe even forcing nuclear powered launch vehicle rocketry efforts again, who knows, instead of just interplanetary nuclear rocketry efforts.

And righteous disdain for tether space elevators or space hoop escalator concepts, which do have the potential for truly economical large scale movement of construction materials into nearby space, such as for the building of the above-described kind of space colony which they had dreamed of back in 1975, although built in GEO and shielded with ice mass brought up with the very cheap electrical lift from the Earth's surface.

Anyway, when NASA was born it had the mandate to get to the Moon before the Soviets to prevent the Soviets from putting nuke-armed missiles there aimed at America, like so recently (at the time) they had started to do in Cuba, too terrifyingly freshly in mind to say no to the daring and very expensive project. Go for the Moon, at any cost, just do it. And amazingly, NASA managed to do it, and then got out of the game before they lost a vehicle, like almost happened in Apollo 13. That was the cause of us putting men on the Moon for brief times, not the urge to adventure or explore other planets or find sources of raw materials on the Moon. Then the soviets said "OK you win, I give up on that one" and then so did we, game over, we won; back to the burgers and TV sports.

But lots of us continued on in our imagination, space was a place and it had enormous potential for helping mankind's civilization, such as the high capacity solar-derived energy systems called "Solar Power Satellites" which were conceived in basic principle way back in the 1960's.

No, it was not with the purpose of enabling a clean energy powered vigorously expanding civilization, that we went to the Moon and jump-started the space program; it was war fears that got the money coughed up by we Americans. Most of the people and corporations who actually did the stuff to make the Apollo and Space Shuttle happen, would still most likely prefer to sit on the couch with their beer & chips watching football on TV than to do that kind of thing; even now, I think. Resting on ones laurels is indeed tempting.

When someone like me attempts to rattle their cage, me babbling something about making a hoop-configured electrical motor encircling the earth, in an orbital-transfer-trajectory-like shape from the equatorial earth surface, which uses its internal kinetics to support its own mass and that of captive spacecraft the motor would lift up and down itself eccentrically from the equatorial ground up to geostationary earth orbit, where a new level of civilization could thereby be built - and could have been started back in 1988 when I first pointed out that potential, and would most likely have operational systems already working to put solar power plant construction materials in GEO. But it is far easier to sneer and ignore such babble by an "unknown" apparently attempting to horn in their well-earned prosperous peerdom, from their highly esteemed positions of influence. Now, back to their couch and the football, an easier exciting game for them.

And similarly it is easier for me to glower at being left in their pompous dust, than to much about it either. While time is delayed ever making it harder to do anything except by rocket, anything else getting likely to eventually be chopped through by something orbiting below GEO, and the more things put there, the harder it will be to but up the truly efficient space transportation structures so things can be bult up in GEO and further rocket launches be made from up there, already 91% up out of Earth's gravitational well from the start, and beyond the atmosphere's drag.

Surely that would be a prime goal for an agency which had the purpose of managing the expansion of civilization into space to help the earth and its incredible precious living systems.

Thus the logical conclusion is, that that is not what that agency considers its purpose to be. It was born of war fears, and apparently continues mostly to keep the technology alive to stay in the game in case rival nations once again go for nuke platforms on the Moon, Mars moons or elsewhere, period. That kept under control, back to the couch and TV sports, job done.

Well, I too can do that kind of thing. But first I put the space colony, space elevator and hoop space escalator designs to the tune of science fiction adventures, and put them in paperback form at minimum cost, and made them free for all for download on the internet, such as one at smashwords download site "Its Down To Earth" by J E D Cline https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2459 (which has had over 700 downloads) and "Building Up" at scribd http://www.scribd.com/doc/14776925/Building-Up Thereby I get to live out the doing of the dreams I had for helping NASA and humanity, albeit only in virtual reality, which is slightly better than nothing. It expands the dream a bit.

Well, also I have been putting the concepts out for all to see, even from the beginning in 1988 on the GEnie computer network, then on the internet on my www.home.earthlink.net/~jedcline pages starting in 1996, and more recently on dedicated websites www.kestsgeo.com and www.escalatorhi.com; but, few if any find them and comment back to me. I also endured the writing, camera ready preparation, travel, and formal presentation of some eight technical papers at space conferences, all at my own out-of-pocket expense, telling of these concepts (such as http://www.scribd.com/doc/14090773/The-Space-Escalators-Unique-Potentials and presentations http://www.scribd.com/doc/14091289/efikestspps7n and http://www.escalatorhi.com/techscifi/tupsec_j.swf ), and calculations http://www.scribd.com/doc/14093583/Energy-Given-to-Mass-By-Lifting-From-Ground-Up-Into-GEO to space folks that only considered them rival to their own bread & butter space concepts, their own cherished laboriously created dreams; although most were corporate ventures.

Anyway, I did my best to show them what might could be some even better dreams for them to have too. Naive me, thinking that a more rewarding dream to actualize, could attract them away from what was their games, their very own thing - understandably. ("A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" it is said. Even if that bird in the hand simply cannot do the job nearly enough adequately, it is something they have got.)

Although sometimes I again briefly wake up enough to wonder, what happened to the dream.

My stance on coal and environment at this point

There needs to be a balance between protecting our environment and maintaining our energy supply; along with heavily cutting back on dependence on offshore oil and its one-way flow of huge amounts of our money. Coal is our local hydrocarbon energy source burned in the air, but it creates much CO2 and toxic contaminants in air and soil; it needs to be expanded some as clean as feasible while speedily building up wind turbine energy sources and solar panel energy sources. Would also be very wise to carefully examine and begin to implement the "KESTS to GEO" hoop-type electrically powered space transportation system between equatorial ground terminals and GEO so as to quickly and economically start building the long-proposed multi-gigawatt Satellite Solar Power Stations in Geostationary Earth Orbit to beam down plentiful clean electrical energy 24/7 to supply America's power needs and become an energy exporter to the rest of the world, too, the same way. Petrochemicals need to be saved and used only for materials manufacturing for the future's needs, not to be burned for energy production anymore now than absolutely necessary. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/14090674/Carousel-f and http://www.scribd.com/doc/14090616/SpacecraftElectricalLiftUpAroundEarthToGEO for example descriptions of the "KESTS to GEO" project concept, which have references to published technical papers; concept does not use rockets thus not of interest to present day aerospace businesses, so the country is the potential creator of the project, much as was for Apollo project; but this time a space race against time so as to provide abundant clean cheap electrical power derived from the 24/7 solar power in orbit, while also sharply conserving the world ecosystem. KESTS to GEO also paves the way for a new way to clean up our industrial toxic materials by conversion back into their constituent materials in solar powered mass-spectrometer facilities in GEO, all enabled by ultra-low-cost transportation to GEO by the KESTS space escalator carousel structure. Meanwhile, maximum effort to build the wind power and solar panel power along with some increase in coal power with intent to phase it out as soon as possible.