For the avoidance of any doubt, Nikola Tesla was no crank or underground cult figure, he was one of the most visionary engineers of his time. The first chapter of 7h3 Drake Equation only scratches the surface of his undoubted genius, and the incidents at Wardenclyffe, which I have tried to dramatise while staying as true to the facts as my story allows, should not be considered as a just and complete epitaph. For more information on his many remarkable achievements, read through the links below or simply look up Wikipedia. For a more in-depth and accurate review of his thoughts, go to:

http://teslacollection.com/tesla_articles/1901/colliers/nikola_tesla/

I have used the information sources below, as well as too many other articles to mention, to flesh out a couple of critical days from one of his most secretive projects.

 

Excerpts from https://www.teslasociety.com/warden.htm

In 1901, Nikola Tesla announced to the world that he would build a broadcasting station, which he would call “Radio City” at Wardenclyffe in Shoreham. He intended this to be the hub of a worldwide broadcasting  system, which would employ several thousand people. Tesla explained his dream of his world broadcasting system to financier, J. Pierpont Morgan, who backed Tesla with $150,000 for the project.  Tesla’s friend, architect Stanford White, of McKim Mead and White, designed the laboratory at Shoreham.  Stanford White designed the Wardenclyffe brick building with arched windows, as well as the cast iron ornament on the roof, called a wellhead, which was inspired from one in Italy.  An associate of White,  W. D. Crow of East Orange, New Jersey, supervised the construction work of the laboratory, which took more than a year to complete. Access to the Tesla property at Wardenclyffe was made on the north side from North Country Road as at that time the main road, Route 25A, was not in existence. Shoreham Railroad station was adjacent to the Tesla property and ideal for transporting equipment and supplies.  Nikola Tesla’s assistant, George Scherff, traveled daily on the railroad from New York City, to bring a wicker basket of special food for Tesla, which was prepared at the Waldorf Astoria.

Tesla sometimes lodged at the home of Dewitt Bailey. Mr. Dodd, proprietor of the Wardenclyffe Inn, was famous for his warm hospitality.  During June of 1902 The Port Jefferson Echo reported that Tesla received assistance from Fritz Lowenstein, who became a well-known scientist and aided Tesla in his Colorado laboratory experiments in 1899 Lowenstein, who arrived from Germany, took up residence along with Tesla’s private secretary, George Scherff, at Dr. W. J. Herdman’s place at Wardenclyffe. 

Construction of the domed tower began in the summer of 1901.  It was constructed entirely of large wooden beams, with 50,000 bolts, which were assembled on the ground and hoisted up into position. When completed, the tower rose to a height of 187 feet and weighed 55 ton.  It was eventually intended to enclose the ribbed cage with copper plates to form an insulated metal ball.  The tower consisted of four tall wooden timbers stretching from a height of over 100 feet. The skeleton structure had a spread of 40 or 50 feet across the base.  Each timber was aimed toward the center as it rose in the air, crowned at the top by a huge half sphere.  The staircase, which led up the tower, was also constructed entirely of wood, and fastened by wooden pegs without the use of nails.  The tower was high enough to be easily seen from New Haven Connecticut, across Long Island Sound. The huge mushroom-like tower gave the aura of a futuristic, Martian giant and local residents called it “Tesla’s Magic Tower.” Nikola Tesla planned to build another two towers to duplicate the tower with the large sphere on top.  The three towers, one for each powerhouse, would each have a 500-foot well. The water at the bottom of the well was to be kept warm and was not to exceed a certain temperature. Excavation was planned to  continue down to 500 feet. The tunnels, which were built under the great tower, were considered a great mystery. A well was dug below the tower 120’ deep and 12’ square, lined with 8’ timbers. A spiral stairway encircled a telescopic steel shaft. Air pressure would cause the shaft to rise 300 feet to contact the tower’s top platform.

Tesla also planned for a workmen’s village and expected model cottages to be built by the following spring.  However, much of his work was done in secrecy.

The August 1902 “Babylon Signal” stated “the power house at Wardenclyffe occupies nearly three acres and is fenced in so that no one can get a view of it except those who are working within the enclosure. Mr. Tesla asserted there was a similar power house in Scotland. Mr. Tesla claims that it is today possible to communicate  between any two points on earth, using the earth as a conductor.” 

In 1903, when Tesla realized that financial backing for Wardenclyffe would cease, he demonstrated lightening-type flashes from his tower in Shoreham. The July 14th report from the New York Sun stated: “Tesla’s Flashes Startling, but he won’t tell what he is trying for at Wardenclyffe.  Natives hereabouts are intensely interested in the nightly electrical display shown from the tall tower where Nikola is conducting his experiments in wireless telegraph and telephony. All sorts of lightning were flashed from the tall tower and poles last night. For a time, the air was filled with blinding streaks of electricity, which seemed to shoot off into the darkness on some mysterious errand. When interviewed, Tesla said  “The people about there, had they been awake instead of asleep, at other times would have seen even stranger things.  Some day, but not at this time, I shall make an announcement of something that I never once dreamed of!”

Tesla tested his transmitter at its full capacity on June 15, 1903. He began his experiment sharp at midnight. This time even New York citizens were able to witness it. Glaringly bright strands of electrical plasma with the length of more than hundreds miles connected the spherical cupola of Wardenclyffe with the sky. The next day “New York Sun” wrote that "people living near Tesla’s laboratory at Long Island were interested very much in his experiments with wireless energy transmission. Last nights they were the witnesses of very strange phenomena, multicolored lightning made by Tesla himself, then inflammation of atmosphere layers at different altitudes and along the big territory. Night suddenly turned to day. Sometimes air was full of luminescence concentrated along the edges of human body, and all people radiated a mysterious shine. They seemed to be ghosts."

 

Excerpts from http://teslacommunity.com/

A report by W. Pickering, professor of the Harvard Observatory, named “Alternating light from Mars”, was published in “New York Times” on January 16, 1901.

“Last year in the beginning of December we got a telegram from Lowell observatory at Arizona. This telegram informed that a strong light flux was noticed coming from Mars and lasted for 70 minutes. Lowell observatory specializes on observations of Mars, and observer was an attentive, approved and experienced man, so we have no doubt in his statements.... We cannot say with certainty if it is a sign that there is an intellect. For the time present this phenomenon is inexplicable.”

Encouraged by the information from Lowell observatory, Tesla ... made hints about having already designed a device for interplanetary communication, which would be improved in the near future. He wrote: “I’ll never forget the first feeling that I felt when I understood that I have a contact with something, which will have priceless and immense results for all humankind. Things that I noticed, frightened me as if I saw something mysterious and almost preternatural. Little by little I understood that I am the first who hear messages sending from one planet to another…”

Excerpts from https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/tesla/esp_tesla_58.htm

Tesla wrote: "In some certain moments I noticed that all air around me was full of tongues of real flame. Intensity of these tongues grew after a number of years instead of falling and reached maximum at the age of Twenty-five. Once I had a feeling that my brain was enveloped in flames and a little Sun shines in my head".

 

In 1905 Tesla suddenly left his laboratory without a clear reason and left all things untouched. He never crossed the threshold of Wardenclyffe again.  

 

The famous writer Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) had often visited Tesla's laboratory at night. Tesla was very close to him and after Twain's death in 1910 he spoke about him as if he were still alive. Twain's enigmatic posthumous novel "Mysterious pilgrim" was published six years later. This story tells of an angel (widely recognised as being Tesla) who left heaven and came to a small Austrian village. The Angel explained that the source of all people's troubles and misfortunes was a misunderstanding that occasionally very small events could link to one another to cause larger events. Finally, before Angel left, he told them the last magic secret, which would be terrible to them: the secret of Non-Existence.... "I am only a thought, lonely thought, which travels along the empty space of the Universe". I figured this might be the sort of thing Tesla would have really said.

 

Read his papers...

http://teslacollection.com/tesla_articles/1901/colliers/nikola_tesla/  including:

• A new system of alternating current motors and transformers 1888

• Phenomena of alternating currents of very high frequency 1891

• The tesla effects with high frequency and high potential currents 

• Experiments with alternate currents of very high frequency and their application to methods of artificial illumination 1891

• Experiments with alternate currents of high potential and high frequency 1892

• On light and other high frequency phenomena 1893

• On the dissipation of the electrical energy of the hertz resonator 1892

• Tesla's oscillator and other inventions 1895

• Earth electricity to kill monopoly 1896

• On electricity 1897

• High frequency oscillators for electro-therapeutic and other purposes 1898

• Plans to dispense with artillery of the present type 1898

• Tesla describes his efforts in various fields of work 1898

• On current interrupters 1899

• The problem of increasing human energy - with special references to the harnessing of The sun's energy 1900

• Tesla's new discovery 1901

• Talking with planets 1901

• The transmission of electrical energy without wires 1904

• Electric autos 1904

• The transmission of electrical energy without wires as a means for furthering peace 1905

• Tuned lightning 1907

• Possibilities of wireless 1907

​

Tesla Family Tree

​

Milutin Tesla  (1819 - April 17, 1879) m. Georgina Ðuka Mandic (1822 - April 16, 1892) about 1847.

    Dane Tesla  (1848 - 1863) [unmarried] [no children]

    Angelina (Tesla) Trbojevich (1850 - ) m. Jovo Trbojevich (1850 - ).

        Mica Trbojevich (no children)

        Marica Trbojevich

        Uros

        Pero (priest)

        Nikola John (Trbojevich) Terbo  (May 21, 1886 - December 2, 1973) m. [private spouse]

            John Terbo  (1924 - 1937)

            William H. Terbo  (1930's - unknown)

    Milka (Tesla) Glumicic  (1852 - )

    Nikola Tesla (July 10, 1856 - January 7, 1943) [no children]

    Marica (Tesla) Kosanovic (1859 - October 29, 1938)

      Youngest child and daughter of Milutin and Duka Tesla. Sister to Nikola Tesla.

      Married to Nikola Nikoladin Kosanovic.

           Mother of Sava Kosanovic (no children); Ljubiša Kosanovic, Milun Kosanovic, Dragiša Kosanovic, and Mica (Kosanovic) Trbovic.

                 Dane Trbovic (Apr 15 1986 - Belgrade)

Josif Tesla  (1821 - x)

    Milan Tesla  (August 28, 1880 - February 26, 1937) m. Mary Tzacz (1890 - October 28, 1930).

         Joseph Tesla  (February 2, 1912 - June 1955)

         Irene Tesla  (1914 - x)

         Clara (Tesla) Everingham (December 5, 1915 - June 1978) m. Clarence J Everingham (May 1908 - ).

              Clarence Everingham  (1930's - unknown)

              Arlene Everingham  (1930's - unknown)

              Rodney Everingham  (1939 - unknown)

         Theodore Tesla  (September 17, 1917 - September 22, 1919) [unmarried] [no children]

         Olga (Tesla) Keim  (1920 - March 8, 2006) m. Francis Joseph Keim (August 31, 1910 - March 8, 2006).

              [private great-great-grandson (1940's - unknown)]

              [private great-great-granddaughter (1940's - unknown)]

         Pauline Tesla (1923 - )

         Amelia Frances (Tesla) Kersting  (October 14, 1923 - May 3, 2011) m. Eugene Bernard Kersting (July 22, 1923 - December 14, 1986) on September 2, 1950.

              Michael A Kersting  (December 20, 1957 - August 6, 2000)

 

Of course the NYC Ellis Island immigration inspection station could easily have corrupted "Trbo" into "Turbo".

Chauncey Montgomery McGovern

 

One of the first articles I read about Nikola Tesla was written by Chauncey McGovern in 1899.

http://www.teslacollection.com/tesla_articles/1899/pearson_s_magazine/chauncy_montgomery_mcgovern/the_new_wizard_of_the_west

I enjoyed it so much, that I added Chauncey to the story, using him as my fictional visitor to Wardenclyffe and allowing us to view it through his fresh eyes.

I also had fun expanding on what really happened during their first meeting.

http://www.institutotesla.org/pdf/TESLA-THEORY-1.pdf

Tesla could reproduce complex energy structures in laboratory conditions. He called the "fireballs". Russian academician Peter Leonidovich Kapiza also studied them, but he couldn't reproduce them in dirigible kind without Tesla's resonance transformer. Nowadays physicists (Corum brothers in America) reproduce some of Tesla's experiments with a certain success. They could receive "fireballs" of a very short standing and only three millimeters in diameter. Tesla produced ball lightning" of football ball size, kept them in hands, put them to the box and covered it with a lid, then he took them from the box. These ball lightning were almost stable structures, which could be kept for minutes.

Works by McGovern include:

The new wizard of the West  May          1899

Undercover as a beggar          January 1900

USS Kentucky                               October 1900

Harnessing Lake Superior     August   1902

When the Krag is laid away                       1910

 

 

Stanford White 

 

While investigating who might also have been present at Wardenclyffe around this time, I came up with another fascinating character, the famous architect Stanford White. Apart from designing the laboratory at Wardenclyffe, he was also responsible for the triumphal arch at NYC's Washington Square, and the 2nd Madison Square Garden. What he is probably mostly remembered for, though, is being the victim in the "trial of the century" after Evelyn Nesbitt's husband shot him dead in cold blood (coincidentally on the roof garden of the 2nd Madison Square Garden).

Having come across his story by accident, I subsequently couldn't resist adding a hint of this scandal to the first chapter. You can "read all about it" on Wikipedia.

Question #1 - how much water is enough?

 

Humans drink 1.5L water per day, and require 2Kg of oxygen per day, though most of this can be scrubbed.

Journey to Mars = 100 days (at 1g constant acceleration) + 100 there + 100 days return = 300 days

Crew = 20

Requirement = 20 x 1.5 x 300 = 9,000L - not very much

 

What about for radiation shielding?

Water first used for radiation shielding, for example, could later be shunted off to the engines. - See more at:

http://www.space.com/11230-water-powered-spaceship-mars-solar-system.html#sthash.VGIgrA49.dpuf

 

What about as a propellant?

I found this kind of debate useful... https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/

I ended up choosing a standard nuclear submarine nuclear reactor to melt the water ice and generate a constant thrust via a steam nozzle. All current technology, which fit with the story imperative of a hasty response. The only new thing is the ability to heft all of that up into space - gravity shield. Of course, with the type of shield I proposed, there would still be some residual weight to overcome, which I did with air-breathing ramjet SABRE engines:

https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre.

Unlike jet engines, which are only capable of powering a vehicle up to Mach 3, three times the speed of sound, SABRE engines are capable of Mach 5.4 in air-breathing mode, and Mach 25 in rocket mode for space flight.  Again, following the same theme, this is something currently under development.

 

The miracle of constant acceleration

Apart from generating a pleasant working environment, the travel times are staggering - even if you do have to turn around and decelerate half-way through!

 

Assuming a sedate 0.3g constant acceleration:

 

Distance Sun-Mars    = 227,940,000km average

Distance Sun-Earth   = 149,600,000km average

Distance Earth-Mars  =  78,340,000km average

Distance Earth-Mars = assume 83 million kilometers = 83x10 9 m

Acceleration = 0.3g = 2.94m/s2

t(seconds) = 2 x sq root  2/2 83 x 10 9 / 9.8/3 = 309,720 seconds = 86 hours

 

Distance Sun-Jupiter = 778,500,000km average

Distance Sun-Earth   = 149,600,000km average

Distance Earth-Jupiter = 778,500,000km average

Distance Earth-Jupiter = 630-930 million km, assume 790 million kilometers = 790x10 9 m

Acceleration = 0.3g = 2.94m/s2

t(seconds) = 2 x sq root  2/2 790 x 10 9 / 9.8/3 = 983,537 seconds = 273 hours

1/2 way = 491,769 seconds

Max speed = 1,445,800 m/s = 0.48% speed of light

(Speed of light = 299,792,458 m/s)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deimos_(moon)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_(moon)

http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/the_deimos_water_company.shtml

http://www.csc.caltech.edu/references/Hopkins-Phobos-Deimos-Paper.pdf

 

Phobos - in mythology Phobos = Fear. Offspring of Aphrodite (Love) and Ares (War).

Deimos - in mythology Deimos = Terror.

Both discovered in 1877 by Asap Hall.

 

I chose Deimos for the first manned Mars mission using the re-purposed ISS, but Phobos for the ultimate reinforced, and secret, alien object storage base.

 

Phobos orbits 6,000 km (3,700 mi) from the Martian surface, closer to its primary than any other known planetary moon. It is so close that it orbits Mars faster than Mars rotates, and completes an orbit in just 7 hours and 39 minutes. As a result, from the surface of Mars it appears to rise in the west, move across the sky in 4 hours 15 min or less, and set in the east, twice each Martian day. Phobos is one of the least reflective bodies in the Solar System, and features a large impact crater, Stickney. The temperatures range from about -4 °C (25 °F) on the sunlit side to -112 °C (-170 °F) on the shadowed side. Phobos has dimensions of 27 × 22 × 18 km. Mean density 1.876 g/cm3

Phobos's density is too low to be solid rock, and it is known to have significant porosity. These results led to the suggestion that Phobos might contain a substantial reservoir of ice. Spectral observations indicate that the surface regolith layer lacks hydration, but ice below the regolith is not ruled out. Recent images from Mars Global Surveyor indicate that Phobos is covered with a layer of fine-grained regolith at least 100 meters thick. Because it is close to the surface and in an equatorial orbit, it cannot be seen above the horizon from latitudes greater than 70.4°.  The Mars–Phobos Lagrangian L1 is 2.5 kilometers (1.6 mi) above Stickney, which is unusually close to the surface. Phobos has been proposed as an early target for a manned mission to Mars. The tele-operation of robotic

scouts on Mars by humans on Phobos could be conducted without significant time delay, and planetary protection concerns in early Mars exploration might be addressed by such an approach. Phobos has also been proposed as an early target for a manned mission to Mars because a landing on Phobos would be considerably less difficult and expensive than a landing on the surface of Mars itself.

 

Deimos turns out to come with a complimentary sweet spot. A site near the "arctic circle" on Deimos offers 10 months of continuous sunlight during Martian summer, enabling the use of simple solar power systems. Astronauts also would have direct line-of-sight to Earth and to rovers on the surface of Mars, simplifying communication, according to the Lockheed Martin fact sheet.

During Martian winter, a similar site in the southern hemisphere is continuously sunlit. A cryogenic propulsion stage for Earth return could be stored in the cold shadows of a large south pole crater on Deimos. From orbit, astronauts would control sample-collecting rovers on the Red Planet. Being in the neighborhood, so to speak, crews could operate the rovers without the speed-of-light delay and limited bandwidth that hinder Earthbound controllers.

Given their extremely low densities, Phobos and Deimos must have very porous interiors. Might these pores be rich in water ice? Astudy performed by de Weck and his graduate students suggests that using Mars' water, methane and hydrogen could cut the initial mass sent to low-Earth orbit for a Mars mission by 48 percent. Further, de Weck suggested money could be saved by treating Mars exploration as a network of missions with linked objectives, rather than a series of one-offs.

Common elements among various missions will also save on cost, since the same technology can be recycled, added Brand Griffin, a senior aerospace engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "Commonality: it has to lead and it can't follow. It has to be at the front end of the program," Griffin said.

At 9.9 miles (11 km) in length 6.2 x 7.5 x 9.9 miles (15 x 12.2 x 11 km), it is little more than a pockmarked chunk of rock in orbit around the red planet. At a distance of 14,573 miles (23,460 km), Deimos is more than twice as far from Mars than Phobos. It appears as little more than a moderately bright spot in the Martian sky. Because of the greater distance, Deimos takes over 30 (30.35) hours to make one complete orbit of Mars. Mean density 1.471±0.166 g/cm. Rotation period - Synchronous.

https://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/pigwad/downloads/digeol/ganymede/JG3/jg3txt.asc

https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/galileo5.html 

https://space-facts.com/ganymede/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_(moon)

 

Ganymede Moon Profile

Diameter: 2* 2634 = 5,268 km = 40% diameter of Earth, 1.5x Moon

Mass: 1.48 x 10^23 kg (2.0 Moons) Although Ganymede is larger than Mercury it only has half its mass, classifying it as low density.

Surface gravity  1.428 m/s2 (0.146 g), Mars is 0.376 g, Moon is 0.1654 g.

Orbit Period:      7.16 days

Surface Temp  -163 °C Temperature: Daytime temperatures on the surface average minus 171 degrees Fahrenheit (-113oC)  to minus 297 F (-183oC), and night temperatures drop to -193C.

Discovery: January 7, 1610, Galileo Galilei

 

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system.

Jupiter’s moons are sometimes called the Jovian satellites, the largest of these are Ganymede, Callisto Io and Europa.

Ganymede measures 5,268 km across, making it larger than the planet Mercury. Mars has a 6,779 km diameter (1.25/77%)

Jupiter has a thin ring system. Its rings are composed mainly of dust particles ejected from some of Jupiter’s smaller worlds during impacts from incoming comets and asteroids. The ring system begins some 92,000 kilometres above Jupiter’s cloud tops and stretches out to more than 225,000 km from the planet. They are between 2,000 to 12,500 kilometres thick

When the numerical naming system was abandoned in the mid-1800s, the moon was named after Ganymede, a Trojan prince in Greek mythology. Zeus, a counterpart of Jupiter in Roman mythology, carried Ganymede, who had taken the form of an eagle, to Olympus, where he became a cupbearer to the Olympian gods and one of Zeus' lovers. It is named for the mythical Greek son of a King who was carried to the sky by Zeus posing as an eagle.

Ganymede is the only moon in the solar system known to have a substantial magnetosphere. That implies there is something inside helping to generate a strong magnetic field. Like Europa, Ganymede is thought to have a subsurface ocean, overlying a liquid iron and nickel core. That core is what helps generate the magnetic field. The surface of Ganymede is icy and covered with two main types of landscape: young, lighter regions and darker, older and cratered terrain. The dark areas appear to contain clays and organic materials. Ganymede has a core of metallic iron, which is followed by a layer of rock that is topped off by a crust of mostly ice that is very thick. There are also a number of bumps on Ganymede's surface, which may be rock formations.

Ganymede's surface is made up of primarily two types of terrain: about 40 percent is dark with numerous craters, and 60  percent is lighter in color with grooves that form intricate patterns to give the satellite its distinctive appearance.  The grooves, which were likely formed as a result of tectonic activity or water being released from beneath the surface, are as high as 2,000 feet and stretch for thousands of miles.

Ganymede has a thin atmosphere that appears to contain oxygen. The amount of ozone is small as compared to Earth. It is produced as charged particles trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field rain down onto the surface of Ganymede. As the charged particles penetrate the icy surface, particles of water are disrupted leading to ozone production. This chemical process hints that Ganymede probably has a thin tenuous oxygen atmosphere like that detected on Europa.

Unfortunately for future space travelers and of real concern to the designers of the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft, the environment near Jupiter contains high levels of energetic particles trapped by Jupiter's magnetic field. This "radiation" is similar to, but much more intense than, that found within Earth's Van Allen belts. It would be immediately fatal to an unprotected human being. 

 

Io and Ganymede have angular diameters between 11 and 49 arcminutes. Our moon has a range of sizes between 29.4 and 33.5 arcminutes, so at some points in the orbits of Io and Ganymede, they will appear about the same size as our moon does in our night sky.

Ganymede: 0.13 radians, 7 degrees, 5 at arm's length ~ a bowling ball at arm's length 

Jupiter's diameter is ~140,000 Km.

Ganymede's distance from Jupiter is ~1,070,000 Km.

The ratio of Ganymede's distance to Jupiter's diameter is 1,070,000 / 140,000 = ~7.5

The full moon is about 0.5 degrees, so Jupiter would appear 15 times larger than the full moon.

 

Galileo Regio

The prominent dark region, called Galileo Regio, is about 3,200 km in diameter. 

Galileo Regio, Lakhmu Fossae, Gir 34.0°N 145.7°W, Ammut anomoly - a large (300 km diameter) circular structure near the center of the Galileo Regio at lat 41° N., long 143°

A large (300 km diameter) circular structure near the center of the quadrangle at lat 41° N., long 143° displays concentric ridges, furrows, grabens, and albedo markings reminiscent of the surface expression of a large impact structure. The origin of this feature is uncertain, but it probably is volcanic or impact related. If volcanic, this structure may record a hot spot where underlying materials have welled upward; however, the ripple-like surface morphology of the structure suggests that it was produced by the ancient impact of a large body.

 

Ammut anomoly

Sorry, I made this up (I think - sometimes it blurs!). Ammut (Ammit, Ahemait, Ammemet) was an Egyptian demoness. She was known as the 'Eater of Hearts', 'The Devourer' and 'Great of Death' because she was a demoness of punishment. She was also known as the 'Dweller in Amenti' or the 'Devourer of Amenti', the place where the sun sets.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38502607

https://phys.org/news/2018-04-fast-radio.html

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are flashes of light radiation from beyond our galaxy. They only last for a few milliseconds, but some bursts have as much power as the radiation of 500 million Suns.

They're one of the most persistent puzzles in modern astronomy. Their brevity, combined with the fact that it's difficult to pinpoint their location, have ensured their origins remain enigmatic. Outlining their work at a major conference, astronomers say they have now traced the source of one of these bursts to a different galaxy. It's an important step to finally solving the mystery, which has spawned a variety of different possible explanations, from black holes to extra-terrestrial intelligence.

The first FRB was discovered in 2007, in archived data from the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia. Astronomers were searching for new examples of magnetised neutron stars called pulsars, but found a new phenomenon - a radio burst from 2001. Since then, 18 FRBs - also referred to as "flashes" or "sizzles" - have been found in total.

"I don't exaggerate when I say there are more theories for what these could be than there are observed bursts," first author of the new study, Shami Chatterjee, told the BBC's Science in Action programme.

All FRBs were found using single-dish radio telescopes that are unable to narrow down the sources' locations with enough precision to further characterise the flashes.

But Dr Chatterjee, from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and colleagues used a multi-antenna radio telescope called the Karl G Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, which had sufficient resolution to precisely determine the location of a flash known as FRB 121102. Unlike all the others, this FRB - discovered in 2012 - has recurred several times.

"When we reported last year that one of these objects was repeating, that - in one go - knocked out about half of those models, because for this one source, at least, we knew it couldn't be explosive. It had to be something where the engine that produced this survived for the next flash." In 83 hours of observing time over six months in 2016, the VLA detected nine bursts from FRB 121102.

"We now know that this particular burst comes from a dwarf galaxy more than three billion light-years from Earth," said Dr Chatterjee. That's a staggering distance from Earth, underlining just how energetic these flashes are. "That simple fact is a huge advance in our understanding of these events."

The team has published their findings in Nature journal and has outlined them at the 229th American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Grapevine, Texas. Since this is the only known repeating burst, it's possible it could represent a completely different phenomenon to other FRBs. In addition to detecting the bright bursts from FRB 121102, the team's observations also revealed an ongoing, persistent source of weaker radio emission in the same region. The flashes and the persistent source must be within 100 light-years of each other, and scientists think they are likely to be either the same object or physically associated with one another.

"This persistent radio source could be an active galactic nucleus (AGN) at the centre of a galaxy that's feeding (consuming matter from its surroundings), sending out jets, and these sizzles we see are little bits of plasma being vaporised in the jets," said Dr Chatterjee.

"That's not the interpretation we favour. The one we favour is that maybe it's a baby magnetar - a neutron star with a massive magnetic field - and it's got a nebula surrounding it that's powered by the energy being lost by this object. Every once in a while, we're getting a flash from this baby magnetar."

Prof Heino Falcke, who had investigated FRBs, but was not involved in the latest study said that, even without a clear answer, the new findings were a "game changer". But he admitted several features associated with FRB 121102 remained mystifying. He agreed that some features of the radio source resembled those associated with large black holes. But he said these were typically found only in large galaxies. He told BBC News: "Why is this spectacular FRB in such a little, very innocent looking galaxy? There are many things coming together which don't make much sense yet.

"Maybe it's a neutron star orbiting a black hole," he said. This might explain the on-off nature of the bursts. But he added: "Why would that produce an FRB where others don't?"

Further research will be needed to clarify the nature of the flashes, and to determine whether all FRBs are caused by the same phenomenon - or have different causes.

https://ipfs.io/ipfs/.../wiki/Wow!_signal.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal received on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States, then used to support the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The signal appeared to come from the constellation Sagittarius and bore the expected hallmarks of extraterrestrial origin.

Astronomer Jerry R. Ehman discovered the anomaly a few days later while reviewing the recorded data. He was so impressed by the result that he circled the reading on the computer printout and wrote the comment Wow! on its side, leading to the event's widely used name.

The entire signal sequence lasted for the full 72-second window during which Big Ear was able to observe it, but has not been detected since, despite several subsequent attempts by Ehman and others. Many hypotheses have been advanced on the origin of the emission, including natural and man-made sources, but none of them adequately explains the result. The Wow! signal remains the strongest candidate for an alien radio transmission ever detected.

The region of the sky in question lies northwest of the globular cluster of M55, in the constellation Sagittarius, roughly 2.5 degrees south of the fifth-magnitude star group Chi Sagittarii, and about 3.5 degrees south of the plane of the ecliptic. The closest easily visible star is Tau Sagittarii. With an apparent visual magnitude of +3.3,[2] this is one of the brighter members of the constellation. The distance of this star from Earth is roughly 122 light-years (37 parsecs), based upon parallax measurements.[1]

This is a spectral type K1 giant star with 1.5 - 2 Solar masses. The stellar envelope is slightly cooler than the Sun, with an effective temperature of 4,860 K,[6] giving the star a light orange color. The interferometry-measured angular diameter of this star, after correcting for limb darkening, is 3.93 ± 0.04 mas,[8] which, at its estimated distance,

equates to a physical radius of about 16 times the radius of the Sun.[5] Tau Sagittarii is a suspected double star although no companion has been confirmed yet. A lower metal content (Fe to H ratio is 70%) and a high peculiar velocity (64 km/s, 4x the local average) relative to the Sun suggest the star is a visitor from a different part of the Galaxy.

Its name is Latin for the archer. Tau Sagittarii (Tau Sgr, t Sagittarii, t Sgr) is a star in the southern zodiac constellation of Sagittarius. Declination –27° 40' 13.5189?

The planet in MOA-2007-BLG-192L is the known earth sized extrasolar planet, and the stars in the others are F and G type stars similar to the Sun. It is very possible that one of these planets are home to a form of intelligent life. We will never know until more research has been done, but now we have a piece of the sky to look in. 

Wow Signal: 

19h 22m 24.64s right ascension -27*03’ declination

19h 25m 17.01s right ascension

MOA-2007-BLG-192L:  a brown dwarf with an extrasolar planet (exoplanet) 3 x earth size orbiting

19h 08m 04s right ascension -27*09’ declination (earth sized planet thought to have ice) 

Everyone needs to know about this, lest we become complacent...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

The Tsar Bomba was a three-stage bomb with Trutnev-Babaev second and third stage design, with a yield of 50 megatons.

This is equivalent to about 1,570 times the combined energy of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki,10 times the combined energy of all the conventional explosives used in World War II, one quarter of the estimated yield of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, and 10% of the combined yield of all nuclear tests to date. A three-stage H-bomb uses a fission bomb primary to compress a thermonuclear secondary, as in most H-bombs, and then uses energy from the resulting explosion to compress a much larger additional thermonuclear stage. There is evidence that the Tsar Bomba had several third stages rather than a single very large one.

The fireball reached nearly as high as the altitude of the release plane and was visible at almost 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) away from where it ascended. The mushroom cloud was about 64 kilometres (40 mi) high (over seven times the height of Mount Everest), which meant that the cloud was above the stratosphere and well inside the mesosphere when it peaked. The cap of the mushroom cloud had a peak width of 95 kilometres (59 mi) and its base was 40 kilometres (25 mi) wide.

All buildings in the village of Severny (both wooden and brick), located 55 kilometres (34 mi) from ground zero within the Sukhoy Nos test range, were destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometers from ground zero wooden houses were destroyed, stone ones lost their roofs, windows and doors, and radio communications were interrupted for almost one hour. One participant in the test saw a bright flash through dark goggles and felt the effects of a thermal pulse even at a distance of 270 kilometres (170 mi). The heat from the explosion could have caused third-degree burns 100 km (62 mi) away from ground

zero. A shock wave was observed in the air at Dikson settlement 700 kilometres (430 mi) away; windowpanes were partially broken to distances of 900 kilometres (560 mi). Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage at even greater distances, breaking windows in Norway and Finland. Despite being detonated 4.2 km above ground, its seismic body wave magnitude was estimated at 5–5.25. Sensors continued to identify the shockwaves after their third trip around the world.

https://www.spacetelescope.org/science/age_size/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23731690-700-why-the-big-bang-was-not-the-beginning/

 

At time of writing, the Universe had a diameter of 92 billion light years in a sphere and there were 10 power of 24 stars in the Universe.

In the Milky Way Galaxy alone, there are over 100 billion stars. The disk of the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years in diameter and about 1,000 light-years thick. This means the average distance between stars is over four light-years. The nearest star to our Sun is 4.7 light years away. Of course the c14n are much further away than that!

 

Cepheids are a special type of variable star with very stable and predictable brightness variations. The period of these variations depends on physical properties of the stars such as their mass and true brightness. This means that astronomers, just by looking at the variability of their light, can find out about the Cepheids' physical nature, which then can be used very effectively to determine their distance. For this reason cosmologists call Cepheids 'standard candles'. Astronomers have used Hubble to observe Cepheids with extraordinary results. The Cepheids have then been used as stepping-stones to make distance measurements for supernovae, which have, in turn, given a measure for the scale of the Universe. Today we know the age of the Universe to a much higher precision than before Hubble: around 13.7 billion years. The microwave COBE and WMAP satellites saw the heat signature left by the Big Bang about 380,000 years after it occurred. But at that point there were no stars and galaxies. In fact the universe was a pretty dark place.

The Early Universe

https://jwst.nasa.gov/firstlight.html

After the Big Bang, the universe was like a hot soup of particles (i.e. protons, neutrons, and electrons). When the universe started cooling, the protons and neutrons began combing into ionized atoms of hydrogen (and eventually some helium). These ionized atoms of hydrogen and helium attracted electrons turning them into neutral atoms - which allowed light to travel freely for the first time, since this light was no longer scattering off free electrons. The universe was no longer dark! But we still don't really know what the universe's first light, created by sources (stars) that fused these hydrogen atoms into more helium, looked like.

Shifted Light

Imagine light leaving the first stars and galaxies nearly 13.6 billion years ago and traveling through space and time to reach our telescopes. We're essentially seeing these objects as they were when the light first left them 13.6 billion years ago. Because the universe is expanding, the farther back we look, the faster these objects (like the first stars and galaxies) are moving further away from us, which means that their light is being shifted towards the red. Their light is what we call "redshifted." This process of particles pairing up is called "Recombination" and it occurred about 400,000 years after the Big Bang. Another result of this is the end of what is called the cosmic dark ages. Light had formerly been stopped from traveling freely because it would frequently scatter off the free electrons. Now that the free electrons were bound to protons, light was no longer being impeded. The Universe went from being opaque to transparent at this point, and "the era of recombination" is the earliest point in our cosmic history to which we can look back with any form of light. This is what we see as the Cosmic Microwave Background today with satellites like the Cosmic Microwave Background Explorer (COBE) and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).

I read lots on this - probably too much and certainly too much to share here! I wanted something which would seem matter-of-fact which wouldn't drag the pace of the story down with a long explanation , so I ended up posing a solution which is like an Alcubierre drive but creates a warp bottle. Three forward probes have enough dark matter at their tips to create a mini singularity and create a negative energy density. The probes separate to match the diameter of the ship. As the three probe tips extend back along the body of the ship, they are woven together in a lattice which keeps spacetime pushed out from the hull by 10 e-32m - simple!

Here's what other folk suggest...

http://missionbackupearth.com/scientific-facts/interstellar-travel/breakthrough-propulsion-physics-program/

cds.cern.ch/record/618057/files/0305457.pdf 

adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1977ApJ...211..357R 

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/.../Jose-Galvez-Dissertation.pdf

 

The diametric drive was a speculative proposal for an "engine" which would create a non-conservative gravitational field with non-zero curl. It was argued that in such circumstances, the side of the field which creates more force on the spacecraft will accelerate the spacecraft in the direction of the force. One idea for realizing this concept involved hypothetical particles with negative mass, originally proposed by Robert Forward and James Woodward. If one were to construct a block of negative mass, and then attach it to a normal "positive" mass, the negative mass would fall towards the positive as does any mass toward any other. On the other hand, the negative mass would generate "negative gravity", and thus the positive mass (the spaceship itself generally) would fall away from the negative mass. If arranged properly, the distance between the two would not change, while they continued to accelerate forever.

One specific proposal for such a pitch drive was called the bias drive. According to this proposal, if it were possible to locally alter the value of the gravitational constant G in front of and behind the craft, one could create a bias drive.

While the gravitational constant is a fundamental physical constant in general relativity, the Brans–Dicke theory of gravitation does in a sense allow for a locally varying gravitational constant, so the notion of a locally varying gravitational constant has been seriously discussed in mainstream physics[citation needed]. It has been claimed[by whom?] that one problem with the concept of a bias drive was that it might create a singularity in the field's gradient located inside the vehicle.

 

Some bimetric theories of the universe propose that two parallel universes instead of one may exist with an opposite arrow of time, linked together by the Big Bang and interacting only through gravitation. The universe is then described as a manifold associated to two Riemannian metrics (one with positive mass matter and the other with negative mass matter). According to group theory, the matter of the conjugated metric would appear to the matter of the other metric as having opposite mass and arrow of time (though its proper time would remain positive). The coupled metrics have their own geodesics and are solutions of two coupled field equations

The Newtonian approximation then provides the following interaction laws:

- Positive mass attracts positive mass.

- Negative mass attracts negative mass.

- Positive mass and negative mass repel each other.

Those laws are different to the laws described by Bondi and Bonnor, and solve the runaway paradox. The negative matter of the coupled metric, interacting with the matter of the other metric via gravity, could be an alternative candidate for the explanation of dark matter, dark energy, cosmic inflation and accelerating universe. Bimetric gravity or bigravity refers to a class of modified mathematical theories of gravity (or gravitation) in which two metric tensors are used instead of one. The second metric may be introduced at high energies, with the implication that the speed of light could be energy-dependent. If the two metrics are dynamical and interact then there will be two graviton modes, one massive and one massless, and thus bimetric theories are closely related to massive gravity.

There are several different bimetric theories, such as those attributed to Nathan Rosen (1909–1995) or Mordehai Milgrom with Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). More recently, developments in massive gravity have also led to new consistent theories of bimetric gravity. Though none has been shown to account for physical observations more accurately or more consistently than the theory of general relativity, Rosen's theory has been shown to be inconsistent with observations of the Hulse–Taylor binary pulsar. Some of these theories lead to cosmic acceleration at late times and are therefore alternatives to dark energy.

The Drake Equation was developed by Frank Drake in 1961 as a way to focus on the factors which determine how many intelligent, communicating civilizations there are in our galaxy. The Drake Equation is:

          N=R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L

 

(i)     the average rate of star formation, R*, in our galaxy,

(ii)    the fraction of formed stars, fp, that have planets,

(iii)   the average number of planets per star, ne, that can potentially support life,

(iv)   the fraction of those planets, fl, that actually develop life,

(v)    the fraction of planets bearing life on which intelligent, civilized life, fi, has developed,

(vi)   the fraction of these civilizations that have developed technologies that release detectable signs into space,

(vii)  the length of time, L, over which such civilizations release detectable signals,

        to this, the c14n species added....

(viii)  the fraction of civilisations, fg,  which develop a functioning gravity shield,

(ix)   the fraction of civilisations which modify their own rna,

(x)    those civilisations which develop faster-than-light travel,

(xi)   species which can absorb and harness alien utility, faa,

(xii)  the fraction of species who can build with dark matter nanomaterials, fc, and

(xiii) those who have survived, S, the Big Crunch into the next universe,  for a combined expression of:

 

        N=R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L x fg x frna x fftl x faa x fc x S

        Through every prior universe, N has only ever been equal to 1.

 

That's my fiction. What are the facts? What does our existing, shorter human Drake Equation really predict?

 

- R* represents the average rate of life-supporting star formation - I think this is known as roughly 10 per year in our galaxy.

- fp is the fraction of stars that have planets around them - I'm going to say that's 1 (ie 100%), as everywhere we look we find more.

From here it gets tough, as it's all guesswork. I'll add some of my own commentary... 

- ne is the number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life - I'm going to say that's 0.1/100 = 0.001

The trouble is, we don't know what the ideal conditions are for sustaining life, except for liquid water and some easily usable source of energy, like the Sun. What about deep sea vents? There's lots of weird extremophile life around these on Earth. Does that not mean life can exist almost anywhere? I'd caution us not to mix correlation with causality - just because something's there, doesn't mean that's why it's there... For instance, life might have started in the most benign circumstances, but evolved to live in the harshest environments. So, that's why I scored this as 0.001 - and that might be overly generous.

- fl is the fraction of planets in ne where life evolves - I'm going to say that's 0.1/100 = 0.001

All we have is our own experience. So, how many times did life evolve on Earth over 4 billion years? Probably once, unless:

     a. life always evolves the same way - rna/dna etc, so always looks exactly the same, or

     b. life 2.0 was eaten by life 1.0, or vice-versa

     c. we just haven't found fossils of life 2.0 - not unreasonable assumption as it's a minor miracle that we have any fossils at all!

     So, again I scored this as 0.001 - and again that might be overly generous. 

- fi is the fraction of fl where intelligent life evolves - I was going to say 1 in a billion but I modified it slightly to 1/10,000,000 - I'l quickly explain before you shout at me! Over 4 billion years on Earth that's only happened once - forget crows and squids, I don't see them writing Hamlet anytime soon. So, a planet has to be stable enough (needs something like a stable Sun and big uncle Jupiter), to allow complex life to be sustained and to evolve, then that life has to have an imperative to become intelligent. That was why I initially thought once in a billion. But then intelligence is a prized evolutionary trait. And who says other species might not have evolved it if we hadn't stopped them. So I modified this to one in ten million, or 0.0000001

- fc is the fraction of fi that releases detectable signs of their existence into space

     I think the general concensus on this is around 10% or 0.1

- fL - for each civilization that does communicate, for what fraction of the planet's life does the civilization survive? Here, unexpectedly I'm an optimist. Again, using Earth as our example, the expected lifetime of our Sun and the Earth is roughly 10 billion years. I'm going to say a very generous 10,000,000 (ie the likes of us would keep on communicating for 10 million years).

 

So, my guess at N = R* fp ne fl fi fc fL = 10*1*0.001*0.001* 0.0000001*0.1*10,000,000 = 0.000001 intelligent, communicating civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy.

In other words, nobody else is Out There (at least in our neighbourhood), and we are some sort of a statistical fluke.

Before you boo me out, let's consider this in the perspective of the c14n. They don't think in terms of galaxies, but universes.

There are an estimated 200 billion galaxies in the universe. Let's allow half of them to be sucked into a supermassive black hole, and say 100,000,000,000 are extant.

So, now we multiply our  0.000001 by  100,000,000,000, giving something in the range of 100,000 intelligent, communicating civilizations in our universe.

Not many...?

Quite a precious resource, but could afford to be whittled down a little...?

Something a vastly superior intelligence might consider fast-tracking through the extended Drake Equation, if they want to get any utility from them that is...