I have been cranking away on the trailer as fast as I can, so I am inserting this blog post after-the fact. This page describes the fabrication of the components. Here is the left sidewall, under construction in our living-room. A few things visible in this image: 1) On my dad’s advice I sanded the […]
Guppy Trailer, Part 3: fabricating the components Read More »
[Written on the day that the Supreme Court overturned DOMA and dismissed the Prop 8 appeal, enabling the expansion of marriage-rights in California.] Today I can wear my wedding-ring with pride. Today our wedding-vows are affirmed. Today, Love triumphed. The black-robed ministers of justice acknowledged the higher power of Love and the recognition of commitment,
The next task was to design the Guppy cabin itself. A rib-and-skin scheme, infilled with rigid insulation and overlaid with thin sheet aluminum (0.24 ga, if I can manage it) seems like the lightest overall design. I started with 1/2″ marine ply sheets, to be cut into 1.5″ wide curved ribs. Below is my first
Guppy Trailer, part 2: cutting the ribs Read More »
This summer Lizzie wants to go on a grand-loop road-trip around the U.S. with the kids. We have thought about various ways to do this, and we have decided upon building a teardrop-type trailer which we will tow behind our VW Golf (a.k.a. Glove). Why? 1. We need something convenient to camp in. At first
Guppy Trailer, part 1: the basic concept Read More »
I am a prototyper. I finally came up with this self-description when trolling the aisles of a plumbing-supply store, browsing the fittings to see what might be useful. [Consider the hose-clamp and its many uses: better than duct tape]. The owner asked what I was looking for. At that moment I was getting parts to
Custom frabrication and the 90% rule Read More »
May 29 edit: Oops! In the PDF posted on April 30, I accidentally skipped pages 2-3 (Sorry Dommo!). This scan has all the pages, and was scanned at 200 dpi, so it is only 10 MB. KoraPaddyCultivation_1953. [with all the pages included] I have left the incomplete file below because it was scanned at 300
Kora Paddy Cultivation Read More »
Recent American and Japanese missions have begun to map and sample the south pole of the moon, since it is currently considered the best candidate for a permanent Lunar base. Here I present a sketch of the south pole, with steps in Lunar base development: On the diagram I describe five steps in base development.
Rough diagram of Luna South Pole development Read More »
Here is an example of an item that we need to develop and test extensively: spinning habitats. Herman Potocnik suggested this system of creating false gravity through spin in 1929, and the ‘wheel-in-the-sky’ space station became a popular motif of pulp sci-fi book and magazine covers in the 1950s. But so far as I know,
Colonizing Luna: from engineering to planning Read More »
Eight years ago I wrote a series of short essays about different elements of a permanent base on Luna. I have just re-posted those essays, back-dated to when I wrote them. Reading them, I am struck by how much has changed in 8 years: the U.S. has retired the Shuttle program, so for the moment
Colonizing Luna: Economies of Risk Read More »
Americans have been deeply divided along political lines in the past: the film Lincoln is all about the brutal factionalism preceding the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Why is the current Congress so divided and ineffective? I suggest that a major factor is the pattern of urbanization and voluntary self-segregation of households
Congressional deadlock of self-segregated American communities Read More »