GeSp994

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Number: 994 Name: TREEHOUSE FOUR

Address: J.E.D.CLINE1 Date: 890916

Approximate # of bytes: 25200

Number of Accesses: 7 Library: 7

Description:

Submitted to a magazine for publication

for an audience that is more familiar with

meditative principles of envisioning,

although often without strong scientific

skills. Audience also usually has goals of

healthy environment, peaceful cooperation,

goodwil toward all...so necessary in an

effort like in this proposal.

Keywords: KESTS,habitat,elevator,envisioning,SSPS,torus,treehouse

---------------------------------

TREEHOUSE FOUR

by J. E. D. Cline September 15, 1989

Subtitle: Meditatively envisioning an alternative way to

restore Earth's ecology while also having a thriving

expanding civilization.

As a youth, it was fun building a treehouse. Climbing

the tree, helping each other haul the boards up into the

tree, together figuring out how to place the pieces among

the treelimbs to build the treehouse. Once it was built,

climbing the tree, looking down from the treehouse to the

ground far below, experiencing a feeling of being in a safe

haven that reached instinctual roots in the mind.

A fun adventure, being part of a spontaneous team

creating a place which had a sense of safe haven, a feeling

of accomplishing something worthwhile. Now as an adult, an

analogous opportunity has arisen. And there also is

opportunity for anyone to share by participating in the

constructive meditation in the last part of this article.

Each person envisioning something, adds energy to make it

more likely to manifest, simply by meditating upon it.

Envisioning a safe haven for people, atop tree-like KESTS

rooted in the Earth and extending so high that they reach

where our telephone and TV relay satellites exist already.

And the "leaves" of the trees are solar power satellites,

which supply the energy to run it all, independent of any

earth resources. Atop the KESTS is a vast string of space

habitats ringing the whole earth, with room enough for all

of mankind three times over, taking the load of mankind's

greatness off of Mother Earth. With civilization moved into

space yet still attached directly to the earth surface,

Planet Earth can be restored to a global balanced ecology

again, like a planetwide national park.

Let me show you this exciting picture of an extention

of Mother Earth. It is a picture of the earth surface

connecting, along KESTS (Kinetic Energy Supported

Transportation Structures), like spokes of a wheel out to

GEO (Geosynchronous Earth Orbit) where a gigantic space

habit encircles the Earth. This extention of the

earthsurface would allow the shift of the major worldwide

civilizations off the planetary surface so as to enable the

earthsurface ecology to be restored to a thriving health,

just as civilization would be enabled to do, with a huge

increase of livingspace and easier access to the enormous

resources of our solar system.

Picture it something like a bicycle wheel, where the

tire and rim is the GEO space habitat, the spoke wires are

the KESTS transportation structures, and the hub is the

Earth itself. Building and living it would be something

like the adventure of building a treehouse, as you may have

done as a youth. A marvelous adventure.

More than adventure, it appears to be a way to fulfil

our responsibility to both our planetary ecology and to our

civilization. Mankind's present worldwide population

currently each week is piling up two million more tons of

garbage, causing the extinction forever of one more of our

fellow lifeforms on this planet, and depleting 40 more

square miles of cropland, for example. It is as if Mother

Earth is very pregnant with mankind ...the womb is not

normally meant as a permanent habitat. Just as an unborn

child in the womb, mankind has just about outgrown the

environ's ability to contain, nurture, and absorb the

resulting wastes. The immense resourses of sheer room,

endless solar energy, and vast resources of raw materials on

the moons and asteroids seem patiently await mankind to

bring life to them as they circle in our vast solar system.

The treehouse urge to build a high haven has often

played its notes on the song of mankind. The ancient

Babylonians attempted to build a tower so high that it would

enable man to enter the heavens." The remains of this

zigurat, commonly known as the Tower of Babel, exists at a

site known as E-Tamen-an ki. It is written that the gods

did not want man loose in the heavens, and so confounded the

builders that they could not understand each other's

speach, and thus could not continue the project together.

In the '60's a Russian by the name of Artsutanov

conceived of building a tower so tall that it would extend

out past GEO, so high that the centrifugal force of the

rotating earth swinging the tower around would hold it up.

Many others since then have reinvented this concept, each to

dismally then discover that the necessary strength of

materials far exceeds anything known to man.

Chemical rockets, as are used today, are far too

inefficient for the kind of exodus necessary to take the

burden off of the earth environment, because most of their

fuel energy is used just to lift the weight of the fuel

itself. At a current cost of $3,000 dollars a pound, a 160

pound person's fare would be $480,000 to GEO, using

conventional technology like the space shuttle. Yet the lure

of vast resources of the solar system still called to those

experiencing the cramping and messiness of earthsurface.

In a summer workshop in 1975 NASA designed a space

settlement of 10,000 people, to be located at the distance

of the moon. This space habitat was designed in great

detail. For example, it would have a community area of

980,000 square meters, and agricultural area of 650,000

square meters. (A meter is about the length of a yardstick).

The shell uses 156,000 tons of aluminum, and 48,000 tons of

glass, all of which was to come from the moon. Inside,

there is 1 million square meters of dry soil, with 22,000

tons of water for it; biomass of people is 600 tons, animals

900 tons, and plants 5,000 tons, in a nearly closed

ecology. Due to the increased sunlight for crops, the

increased productivity factor of cucumber is 8.5, of

eggplant 12.6, of lettuce 2.3, and tomato 2.3.

Spaciousness is achieved by terracing the housing structures

up the curved walls inside the rotating habitat, and

landscaped lawns, trees and flowers abound. And so on in

great detail. In the scenario being proposed here to you,

for convenience this design is utilized, using 1-and-a-half

million of them strung together like beads in a necklace

circling Earth synchronously with the earthsurface 22,300

miles below.

Although conventional rocket propelled space

transportation now requires thousands of dollars per pound,

the actual energy needed to lift an average sized human

being from the earth's surface to escape the earth's gravity

is only about a thousand kilowatt hours, as once pointed

out by the author of "2001: A Space Odessy", Arthur C.

Clarke. Thus an electrical elevator would use less than $100

(instead of the previously-mentioned $480,000) of

electricity to lift each person to space.

Yet the structure of such an elevator would require

strengths of materials far greater than now even thinkable.

So new structural principles began to come to the mind of

creative mankind.

In the mid '80's Rod Hyde and Keith Lofstrom conceived

extraordinary forms of transportation structures into space,

which were supported by the kinetic energy of high-velocity

mass travelling within it in a loop, instead of being

supported by the mere strength of structural materials. This

is the same basic concept used in this scenario to connect

earthsurface with the ring of space habitats in GEO. Hyde's

dynamic structure went straight up and down, using a stream

of magnetic discs magnetically flung up an evacuated tube,

and used some of the energy of those speeding magnets to

support the weight of the tube. At the top of the

structure, the discs would be magnetically bounced off of a

weight, and return back down the tube to the ground to be

again flung up the tube, supporting it. The tube is

necessary because air would slow down and burn up those very

fast discs, if it was attempted without the tube. But this

method alone will not be able to reach GEO, because at GEO

there is no weight-force to be used to bounce the stream of

disks back toward the ground.

Lofstrom's concept used a continuous iron belt to be

flung up, spanning a continent just above the atmosphere

perhaps 90 miles up, before returning to earthsurface, then

reversing its direction forming a continuous loop.

Yet any object getting off of either of these dynamic

structures would just fall back to earth, not being fast

enough to orbit on its own. So the structures would have to

be merely carriers for conventional rocket propelled

vehicles; the overall transportation process would be more

efficient, but perhaps not worth the effort and considerable

risk these immense structures would represent.

So Earle Smith thought of extending Lofstrom's iron belt

to circle the earth, touching earthsurface at one point and

circling all the way up to GEO, above the opposite side of

the earth, then continuing the circling on around again to

the earthsurface. At GEO, an object leaving the elevator

would stay put, instead of falling back to earthsurface.

However, this belt lacked a way to support its

protecting tube's weight on the downward direction. And the

iron belt would be stretched too severly in parts of its

trajectory, risking breakage. And the process of building

it in collapsed form all the way around the earth on the

surface, prior to speeding it up to raise it, seemed quite

an incredibly difficult undertaking. Yet the thought of a

transportation structure, supported by the energy within it

all the way up to GEO, was a key idea.

What is so special about "GEO"? Geosynchronous Earth

Orbit, or GEO for short, happens to be the distance from the

earthsurface where the speed necessary to stay in orbit is

exactly the same speed that the earthsurface would go at, if

it were that high. In other words, the orbit there takes

24 hours to go once around the earth, the same amount of

time it takes the earth to go around once. So an object in

GEO appears to not be moving, as seen by one on the ground.

Note that the time it takes to go around the earth is

greater the further away from earth; at the distance of the

moon's orbit it takes 29.5 days to go around the earth once,

and at on orbit only about 200 miles up like the space

shuttle stays in usually, it only takes an hour and a half

to go once around the earth. At GEO, 22,300 miles up, it

takes exactly one day to go around once...just like the

earth takes one day to go around once. Circling the Earth

above the equator, and rotating in the same direction as

the Earth rotates, it appears motionless to a person on the

ground. Find a satellite dish in your neighborhood: its

center is pointing at a point on GEO, where the TV relay

satellite sits, appearantly motionlessly, as far as the

satellite dish is concerned. Just what one would want for an

exit door of an elevator!

So here is where the edge of technlogic thinking has

stopped. The linear-thinking mode of conventional science

and technology has to embrace holistic whole-picture

synthesis processes, to advance further.

And that is something that right-brain meditators can

do quite well.

Right-brained holistic picturing of the relationships of

whole designs needs to be a frequent step in the creative

cognitive process, alternating with the left-brained linear

rational analysis with which conventional science and

technology is familiar. Scientists, engineers, and

technicians typically are extremely weak in the synthesis

mode of thinking. The holistic design synthesis mode of

thinking is necessary to anticipate the potentials in the

overall scene, and readers of this publication are much more

likely to be able to do this than the average engineer. And

meditation is a common link for both left-brained and

right-brained thinking, enabling communication between

otherwise otherwise rather incompatible experiential

viewpoints.

For this treehouse, first we must grow the tree.... Let's

look at how we can apply existing science and technology to

do this. Grow the concept in your mind with me now, if you

will, starting with the basic principles:

In this meditational process, start with a thought, then

stretch it and add to it, add qualities, look and see what

it has become occasionally in its entirety as it evolves in

your mind.

Meditation can be passively receptive, and it can be

creatively constructive. As in dreamily watching and in

actively envisioning. Analogous to reading and writing; to

listening and talking; to appreciating a painting and with

paint and brush creating a painting. I invite you to

dreamily watch the flow of ideas as you read this article,

and then to actively envision an alternative path which

could lead to restoring the planetary ecology while

providing a vastly expanding civilization at the same time.

In meditation first consult your inner Source of Higher

Wisdom as to your participation in this.

This active envisioning meditation may be of a

different nature than you have previously experienced. It

will picture the energy flow of ideas as they create a new

technology out of well-established scientific principles;

then continue with the energy flow of ideas better known in

technology, to construct a great habitat for mankind's

greatness while reducing the burden of that greatness on the

Earth's resources. Think of a Mother Earth very pregnant

with Mankind proudly giving birth to her wonderful

offspring....

Let's start with a simple idea and then grow it,

stretch it, add to it, until it has the appearance we

choose. Start with the idea of tossing a ball into the air.

See how you grasp the ball, speed it up and aim it upward,

let go and watch it arc high above, then back down to ground

again. Next, throw the ball again into the air except this

time instead of your hand doing the speeding-up of the ball,

put a magnet in the ball and have another magnet in your

hand, and let the magnet fields push/pull against each other

to toss the ball without otherwise touching the ball. Next

toss, use the magnetic field of electrical energy to push

against the magnet in the ball, flinging it upward. Still

with me in this mental painting? You might want to back up

some and re-run occasionally.

Next plug a high powered energy source into the

ball-tosser, so powerful that the ball goes up extremely

fast. Let the ball with the magnet inside become an endless

string of small objects with magnets in them steadily being

flung rapidly upward. See this stream of small objects

moving so fast that they need a tube around them which keeps

the air out of their path, and let the magnets in that

stream pull upwards a little on that tube so as to support

its weight. See the stream of magnets flung out at just the

right speed to coast clear out of the Earth's atmosphere,

all the way up to where the telephone and television relay

satellites are located (again, called GEO, Geosynchronous Earth

Orbit, because it is stationary with respect to the earth

surface's daily rotation.) The stream continues on around

the planet, returning back to its starting point on the

ground. The electrical magnet tosser speeds the stream of

magnets back up again then back upward in a continuous loop

from the ground to GEO and back.

Now, on the tube that surrounds the flowing stream of

fast magnets, attach tracks, like cablecars or the new high

speed traintracks that use magnets to keep the train from

quite touching the tracks, so it can go very fast. Let this

train be big enough, and the supporting stream of magnets

big enough, that a lot of people and construction materials

can ride it from the ground up to the site of the telephone

and TV relay satellites.

Let those people build the first of a string of very

large hollow innertube-like structures. Each innertube is

over a mile across. Inside they are about 500 feet wide,

are filled with air, and lazily rotate just enough so that

inside the tube if feels much like earth's gravity. The tube

is built of metal, and windows allow reflected sunlight

inside. Up there where there is no day/night nor clouds,

so that seven times the sunlight reaches every square foot,

as compared to the average sunlight reaching a square foot

on the ground.

Divide the inside of each tube into six equal sections.

Alternate sections are each occupied by an intensive farm a

half mile long and 500 feet wide, slightly curved as in a

mountain valley. There, corn, wheat, rice, vegetables and

citrus trees grow splendidly in the endless sunlight. Ponds

hold a fish farm, and the water from the fish farm waters

the crops. Chickens, rabbits, a few cattle also thrive there

on the grain crops.

In between those agricultural areas there are the homes

and light-industry areas. These three suburb sections are

also resembling half-mile long valleys, with homes and

landscaping built up and down the valley sides, complete

with lawn, trees, birds, playgrounds. Pumps supply a flow

of water flow as in small streams in the park areas, where

perhaps Koi brightly swim.

With this string of innertubes already started high

above the earth surface, standard space technology can go

from there to our moon, to get the raw materials for

building the rest of the string of innertubes. A similar

tube transportation system is built up from the Moon's

surface, and soon a flow of raw materials moves from the

Moon to GEO for the construction of the remainder of this

string of innertube-like space habitats, eventually built

all the way around the Earth. Since each innertube

comfortably houses and supports 10,000 people, and there is

room for one and a half million of the innertubes in GEO,

then there is room for up to 15 billion people to live very

well there, triple the whole earth's current population.

These space habitats will be designed to be nearly

closed ecological units, so everything is designed with 100%

recycling in mind. Some of the resulting recycling methods

may be useful for the few people who choose to remain

permanently on the earth surface as caretakers.

Let each nation have several of those tubes with

streams of fast magnets that we first envisioned, carrying

trainloads of people and materials up to GEO. So each

nation has access to the string of innertubes, where the

population can resettle at: first the excess populations,

then others as soon as the quality of life there becomes

better than that on the ground. Each nation then has the

opportunity to begin the restoration of its earthland back

into ecological balance, perhaps eventually allowing the

entire Earth to become as one gigantic international park

area, where a great abundance of kinds of living creatures

such as elephants, lions, crows, sparrows, whales and

porpoise can again thrive. And lastly to this envisioned

picture you are painting, let it happen soon enough before

vastly more kinds of species have vanished forever, and

before the world is completely covered with our garbage

dumping.Time has a price.

And perhaps most of all, let this whole picture of

advancing civilisation while also restoring the planetary

ecological health be achieved and populated by people who

have learned to live in peaceful constructive wisdom,

meditating.

Thank you for your help in making possible this

alternate path for restoring our planet while providing an

ever-improving civilization. Meditative active envisioning

IS the first step in creating anything, you know. In your

first reading of this while dreamily watching the flow of

the growth of ideas toward goals, what does your inner Wiser

Self tell you intuitively about your response to this?

Now that you have the picture, here is a short form of the

meditation:

Start now with picturing a small mass passing you by going

so fast that it would continue on out into space. The mass

is travelling within a tube which has had all the air pumped

out of it. Now mentally stretch that hurtling mass into a

steady stream of mass, all speeding up that tube toward

outer space. Put magnets along the stream of mass, and more

magnets occasionally along the tube which keeps out the air

from the path of the mass stream. The magnets in the mass

stream magnetically pull upward on the tube just enough to

support the tube's weight here on earth, and keep the mass

from touching the tube itself.

There are powerful electromagnets, pulsing magnetic

fields such as to push the magnets which are part of the

moving mass stream faster. Electric generators power those

pushing electromagnets. Look again at the tube, from the

outside, now. See its potential as a climbable treetrunk!

Reaching from the ground upward, and extending all the way

to GEO. Up and down this treetrunk can move an electric

train. Some of the kinetic energy of the moving mass stream

inside of the tube, magnetically can be coupled through the

tube to power the electric train. Let the mass stream flow

within a circuit, returning to its starting point for

reaccelleration, continuing on again within the tube

endlessly. Call this combination of orbital velocity mass

stream, evacuated tube, and electric train a "KESTS", short

for a Kinetic Energy Supported Transportation Structure.

Let the electric train travel from the ground up along

the tube all the way to GEO, Geosynchronous Earth Orbit,

which is motionless relative to the earth surface. Using

the train, haul up building materials to start building a

hollow donut a mile across and 500 feet wide inside. The

donut spins slowly, just enough so as to create earth normal

gravity along the inside of its outer surface. Within the

immensity of this hollow donut, build landscaping, houses,

farm areas, light industry, built of materials hauled up

from the ground, 22,300 miles below. Now from this high

haven build large spacecraft, go set up a materials

processing industry on the moon's surface, build another

KESTS up from the moon to make it easier to transfer the

construction materials back to GEO for building more of the

hollow donut space habitats. Build a string of the space

habitats all the way around the earth filling GEO, and build

more KESTS occasionally down to each of the nations on the

earth surface. Invite civilization to move to this high

haven, and restore Mother Earth's beautiful ecology back to

thriving health. And from the high treehouse-like haven in

GEO, look outward, toward the immensity of space, building

materials, and energy within our solar system, awaiting the

precious spark of life to be brought there from Earth.

........................................................

Bio: J. E. D. Cline (AKA "Dave", "Jim", or "Jed") is active

in combining metaphysics/meditation with science/technology,

with the objective of improving the quality of life for

all. A member of the staff of Meditation Magazine, he is

newly a practitioner/minister through the University of

Metaphysics. He mostly earns a living in electronics

development work, and has contributed 22 articles on space

transportation and colonization in the GEnie Spaceport

Library, available worldwide to people with home computers

with a modem.

J. E. D. Cline. Permission is granted for material to be

distributed without restriction, provided credit is given to

GEnie, SPACEPORT, and J.E.D.Cline.

An Excalator Hi page titled GeSp994 by J E D Cline started on Wednesday, April 2, 2008 5:16:27 PM US/Pacific

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