Solar Orbits

As a semi-follow up from this earlier post, I wish to talk about how scheduling a trip the the glorious Red Planet would work. As you know, Earth and Mars take different amounts of time to orbit the Sun. The basics are discussed in great detail on the Mars Timekeeping Wikipedia page, so I will try to avoid repeating what is there.

But, basically the thing to know is that Mars ranges from between 50 million to 400 million miles from Earth, depending mainly on if they are on the same side of the Sun. Every twenty-five months, the planets align on the same side of the Sun in such a way that is optimal for minimizing travel distance from here to there. I could bore you with an explanation, but the best way to understand this cycle is to view a handy animation that has been created from credible sources. From that page:

Each time Earth passes close to Mars the event is called an "opposition". [...] Because an opposition can happen when Mars is at different points in its orbit, the distance at opposition changes, and so does the size of Mars as viewed from Earth. During the opposition in August 2003, Earth and Mars were closer together than they had been in thousands of years!

So, using the liberties granted to me by the powers of Fair Use, I have taken the liberty of preparing a series of images which show the sequence of oppositions from 1960 to 2027. You can view and download that page here (to be created). A more handy list is as follows:

01-02-1961, 02-13-1963, 03-21-1965, 04-30-1967, 06-16-1969, 08-17-1971, 10-23-1973, 12-16-1975

01-25-1978, 02-03-1980, 04-08-1982, 05-19-1984, 07-17-1986, 09-27-1988, 11-23-1990

01-06-1993, 02-15-1995, 03-26-1997, 05-05-1999, 06-21-2001, 08-24-2003, 10-30-2005, 12-21-2007

01-30-2010, 03-05-2012, 04-13-2014, 05-26-2016, 07-23-2018, 10-06,2020, 12-01-2022

01-09-2025, 02-13-2027

Along the same line of thinking, I was curious as to if there is any logical perennial relationship between Earth and Mars, and I put together a series of images taken on January 1 of each year between 1961 and 2025. That data, it turns out, is not nearly as interesting, but I will publish it here in case you are interested. Sometimes, being able to visualize the mathematical data can be greatly helpful for a person.

Multiplayer Awareness

This post is to encapsulate my player information for Multiplayer games that I occasionally enjoy. Feel free to contact me through these games for some awesome Online Gaming fun.

(Wii)

Guitar Hero III - Player Profile
Super Smash Bros Brawl Friend Code: 1633-4076-2747
Mario Kart Wii Friend Code; 3222-6091-8057

I will add to this list periodically and create a permanent link on the side of the page so that you'll always have an easy way to see updates when I add new games.

Dogma

I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should be malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant.
-Rufus (Chris Rock) from Dogma

He knows changes aren't permanent,
But change is.
-Tom Sawyer, by Rush

One thing history teaches us is that it has all been done before. It is comfortable to delude ourselves that each experience is unique, but that isn't the case. The only things that change from one event to the next are the setting and the names.

This is what makes stories so valuable. Stories capture the timelessness of the events that happen over and over again. Thus, stories don't only provide a looking-glass into the past, but also into the future.

In the play of life, the stage has been set and the actors are taking their places upon it. The trick, therefore, is to understand the stories and anticipate their actions to profit by it. It is seldom that I would actually advocate this type of selfishness for personal gain. I like to believe that I am altruistic, but there are certainly times where I play my cards close to my chest for my own personal gains.

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?
---Mark 8:36

A wise question! With a simple answer: It profits a man the world! It profits him the opportunity to be one of the actors in the play of life who perform the ever repeating scenes for their audience. And it profits the man the opportunity to change the script for the benefit of providing a 'new' story for the audience, and regain his soul.

Thus: Selfishness is benevolent. And here is the setting of the story and the actors in it. There are two worldwide economic crises at hand: energy and longevity. The energy crisis is easy to understand because the fossil fuels that we extract for most of the world's energy are destined to run out in a number of decades. Backstage, global warming and environmentalists clamor that burning pollutive fuels is killing the planet. And in recent years the amount of governmental aid for alternative energy sources and awareness of the need to have options has increased.

We are, or course, talking about mass-produced energy that drives entire populations and not the localized energy of small, self-sufficient communities. The story has been told numerous times before. For more than century we have toyed with alternative energy sources with varying levels of success. Up until the Civil War, we exploited human energy as a vicious way to get much work done. Deforestation yielded a source of wood fuel that could be burned. Mining has yielded a source of coal that can be burned. Hydroelectric power generated by river dams is a powerful solution that dates back to the New Deal. Nuclear power got its legs during the Cold War (and I am proud to say, powers 50% of the energy utilization in the state where I grew up). Now, there are three relative newcomers to the energy game. Ethanol from corn, energy captured by spinning turbines with the force of the wind, and energy captured from the rays of the sun compete for dominance in the new world of energy.

One of these new energy sources are destined to replace fossil fuels in a number of decades, but they are all generating revenues for publicly traded companies now and that can be profitted from. But... how?

I will write off the corn/ethanol business because it is dominated by firms like Kellogg, General Mills, ConAgra, Kraft, Nestle, and Heinz. These are all $10-50 Billion companies that are already limited by their own size and diversification to be able to provide any serious investment returns.

There are foreign companies that are working on wind power turbines in countries like Sweden and Germany, but the 800 pound gorilla is named General Electric. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions they will eventually control the market, but the key is that they are a $375 Billion dollar company and real growth potential is lacking.

But solar power has glorious potential. Take a look at the players here who will one day earn market capitalization of $500 Billion dollars. At present, the entire group is worth less than $50 Billion dollars. There is lots of growth potential there, and it is ripe to be profited from.

So go... take this advise and profit yourself the world.

And yes - I know I referred to a second worldwide crisis, but I will not pontificate on that at this moment. I leave it as an exercise of the reader to figure out what the crisis of longevity is, and what its story is.