Quantum Pseudo-Code

The science of quantum physics is like trying to read a back of a cereal box.

Only it’s written in a combination of Chinese and Cyrillic Russian.

If you’re not born to it, or have spent many years studying it, it’s all Greek to you! LOL!

Okay, okay, all language teasing aside, the point here is that if you put quantum physics in the context of language, an everyday person might understand it a little bit better, right?

Well, how about if it’s put into the context of a computer language?

I am always amazed at how such bright physicists discuss scientific anomalies, like quantum entanglement, pronounce that “that’s just the way it is” and never seriously consider an obvious answer and solution to all such anomalies – namely that perhaps our reality is under programmed control.

For the quantum entanglement anomaly, I think you will see what I mean.  Imagine that our world is like a video game.  As with existing commercial games, which use “physics engines”, the players (us) are subject to the rules of physics, as are subatomic particles.  However, suppose there is a rule in the engine that says that when two particles interact, their behavior is synchronized going forward.  Simple to program.  The pseudocode would look something like:

for all particles (i)
for all particles (j)
if distance(particle.i, particle.j) < EntanglementThreshold then
Synchronize(particle.i, particle.j)
else
end if
next j
next i

After that event, at each cycle through the main program loop, whatever one particle does, its synchronized counterparts also do.  Since the program operates outside of the artificial laws of physics, those particles can be placed anywhere in the program’s reality space and they will always stay synchronized.  Yet their motion and other interactions may be subject to the usual physics engine.  This is very easy to program, and, coupled with all of the other evidence that our reality is under programmed control (the programmer is the intelligent creator), offers a perfect explanation.  More and more scientists are considering these ideas (e.g. Craig Hogan, Brian Whitworth, Andrei Linde) although the thought center is more in the fields of philosophy, computer science, and artificial intelligence.  I wonder if the reason more physicists haven’t caught on is that they fear that such concepts might make them obsolete.

They needn’t worry.  Their jobs are still to probe the workings of the “cosmic program.”

The author of the post neglects to mention Nick Bostrum, one of the leading proponents of ‘living in a computer simulation’ theory. But I think it was just an oversight.

Now to me, the living in a computer simulation theory is a big cop-out, just a variant of a religion to haggle and fight over in a modern day setting. This usually involves some sort of Singularity Event in which it could be our non-human descendents (gods) are running ancestor programs and we are the side show!

It could be possible I guess. Then again, anything could be possible!

As for me, I’m holding out for the resolution of the Fermi Paradox. If we made contact with true aliens, all bets are off!

Quantum Entanglement – Solved (with Pseudo-code!)

Early Twen-Cen UFO/Alien Memes

From Adam Gorightly’s site:

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Turn of the Century Image of an Alien Discovered

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Comment by Abdullah the Butcher on Gorightly’s site, “Which one is the alien?” LOL!

The one on the left looks like my great-great grandfather!

I wonder if the “alien” traveled around in one of these things?

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Interesting the cigar shaped UFO meme has returned recently. The little ‘alien’ is still with us. Apparently they’re not mutually exclusive.

The resurgence of phallic symbolism?

The little ‘aliens’ represent ’seed?’

http://www.angelfire.com/ma4/oddities/page2.html

The Quantum Entanglement of Energy

When it comes to the discussion of quantum entanglement, you might as well be speaking Mandarin Chinese to myself and most folks (not a bad language to learn right now IMHO). The concept is alien and is far from the classical Newtonian physics we understand on a daily basis as the distance from Earth to the edge of the known Universe.

And as far as quantum teleportation is concerned, well, this is considered fringe sci-fi sh*t that almost nobody outside of academia understands.

Now scientists are considering useful work for the concept of ‘quantum teleportation.’ And that idea is for the transmission of energy across great distances.

First, they teleported photons, then atoms and ions. Now one physicist has worked out how to do it with energy, a technique that has profound implications for the future of physics.

In 1993, Charlie Bennett at IBM’s Watson Research Center in New York State and a few pals showed how to transmit quantum information from one point in space to another without traversing the intervening space.

The technique relies on the strange quantum phenomenon called entanglement, in which two particles share the same existence. This deep connection means that a measurement on one particle immediately influences the other, even though they are light-years apart. Bennett and company worked out how to exploit this to send information. (The influence between the particles may be immediate, but the process does not violate relativity because some informatiom has to be sent classically at the speed of light.) They called the technique teleportation.

That’s not really an overstatement of its potential. Since quantum particles are indistinguishable but for the information they carry, there is no need to transmit them themselves. A much simpler idea is to send the information they contain instead and ensure that there is a ready supply of particles at the other end to take on their identity. Since then, physicists have used these ideas to actually teleport photons, atoms, and ions. And it’s not too hard to imagine that molecules and perhaps even viruses could be teleported in the not-too-distant future.

But Masahiro Hotta at Tohoku University in Japan has come up with a much more exotic idea. Why not use the same quantum principles to teleport energy?

Today, building on a number of papers published in the last year, Hotta outlines his idea and its implications. The process of teleportation involves making a measurement on each one an entangled pair of particles. He points out that the measurement on the first particle injects quantum energy into the system. He then shows that by carefully choosing the measurement to do on the second particle, it is possible to extract the original energy.

All this is possible because there are always quantum fluctuations in the energy of any particle. The teleportation process allows you to inject quantum energy at one point in the universe and then exploit quantum energy fluctuations to extract it from another point. Of course, the energy of the system as whole is unchanged.

He gives the example of a string of entangled ions oscillating back and forth in an electric field trap, a bit like Newton’s balls. Measuring the state of the first ion injects energy into the system in the form of a phonon, a quantum of oscillation. Hotta says that performing the right kind of measurement on the last ion extracts this energy. Since this can be done at the speed of light (in principle), the phonon doesn’t travel across the intermediate ions so there is no heating of these ions. The energy has been transmitted without traveling across the intervening space. That’s teleportation.

Just how we might exploit the ability to teleport energy isn’t clear yet. Post your suggestions in the comments section if you have any.

But the really exciting stuff is the implications this has for the foundations of physics. Hotta says that his approach gives physicists a way of exploring the relationship between quantum information and quantum energy for the first time.

There is a growing sense that the properties of the universe are best described not by the laws that govern matter but by the laws that govern information. This appears to be true for the quantum world, is certainly true for special relativity, and is currently being explored for general relativity. Having a way to handle energy on the same footing may help to draw these diverse strands together.

Interesting stuff. There’s no telling where this kind of thinking might lead.

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Hmm..sounds good in theory.

In fact, it might be easier to suck the energy out of the entangled energy state than the transmission of matter.

Believe it or not, that’s fast becoming a fact, not a mere hypothesis anymore.

In 100 years, the transportation of people and goods across this planet, and others, will be as common as cars and trucks on the interstate highways.

Just MHO.

Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy

hat tip

Planetary ‘Rind’

Think of an orange. Or an apple.

Cut either in half and look at it. What do you see?

A tough, protective layer over the fruit part, right?

Now think of looking at the Earth from about half way to the Moon. If you could detect them all, you would see a layer of satellites in orbit about it.

Just like an apple. Or an orange.

A planetary ’skin’ or ‘rind’ if you will:

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If the ‘Planetary Skin’ song being sung by those young people wasn’t brain-washing, I don’t know what is!

This ties in well with the Google-Plex and the NSA, doesn’t it?

Like I said, kiss your privacy, or what’s left of it good-bye folks!

Planetary Skin – Global Surveillance Infrastructure

Spy’Bots? Just Google the NSA!

Well, this was bound to happen, the partnership of Google and the ultimate spy agency, the NSA.

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The world’s largest Internet search company and the world’s most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity.

Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.

Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans’ online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users’ searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.

The partnership strikes at the core of one of the most sensitive issues for the government and private industry in the evolving world of cybersecurity: how to balance privacy and national security interests. On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair called the Google attacks, which the company acknowledged in January, a “wake-up call.” Cyberspace cannot be protected, he said, without a “collaborative effort that incorporates both the U.S. private sector and our international partners.”

But achieving collaboration is not easy, in part because private companies do not trust the government to keep their secrets and in part because of concerns that collaboration can lead to continuous government monitoring of private communications. Privacy advocates, concerned about a repeat of the NSA’s warrantless interception of Americans’ phone calls and e-mails after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, say information-sharing must be limited and closely overseen.

“The critical question is: At what level will the American public be comfortable with Google sharing information with NSA?” said Ellen McCarthy, president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, an organization of current and former intelligence and national security officials that seeks ways to foster greater sharing of information between government and industry.

On Jan. 12, Google took the rare step of announcing publicly that its systems had been hacked in a series of intrusions beginning in December.

The intrusions, industry experts said, targeted Google source code — the programming language underlying Google applications — and extended to more than 30 other large tech, defense, energy, financial and media companies. The Gmail accounts of human rights activists in Europe, China and the United States were also compromised.

So significant was the attack that Google threatened to shutter its business operation in China if the government did not agree to let the firm operate an uncensored search engine there. That issue is still unresolved.

Google approached the NSA shortly after the attacks, sources said, but the deal is taking weeks to hammer out, reflecting the sensitivity of the partnership. Any agreement would mark the first time that Google has entered a formal information-sharing relationship with the NSA, sources said. In 2008, the firm stated that it had not cooperated with the NSA in its Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Sources familiar with the new initiative said the focus is not figuring out who was behind the recent cyberattacks — doing so is a nearly impossible task after the fact — but building a better defense of Google’s networks, or what its technicians call “information assurance.”

One senior defense official, while not confirming or denying any agreement the NSA might have with any firm, said: “If a company came to the table and asked for help, I would ask them . . . ‘What do you know about what transpired in your system? What deficiencies do you think they took advantage of? Tell me a little bit about what it was they did.’ ” Sources said the NSA is reaching out to other government agencies that play key roles in the U.S. effort to defend cyberspace and might be able to help in the Google investigation.

These agencies include the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Over the past decade, other Silicon Valley companies have quietly turned to the NSA for guidance in protecting their networks.

“As a general matter,” NSA spokeswoman Judi Emmel said, “as part of its information-assurance mission, NSA works with a broad range of commercial partners and research associates to ensure the availability of secure tailored solutions for Department of Defense and national security systems customers.”

Despite such precedent, Matthew Aid, an expert on the NSA, said Google’s global reach makes it unique.

“When you rise to the level of Google . . . you’re looking at a company that has taken great pride in its independence,” said Aid, author of “The Secret Sentry,” a history of the NSA. “I’m a little uncomfortable with Google cooperating this closely with the nation’s largest intelligence agency, even if it’s strictly for defensive purposes.”

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Go to the site ‘Ignorance Is Futile‘ and you will get an education on Google and the plans to make it “God on Earth.”

Joining with the NSA is just another step toward accomplishing that goal.

Kiss what’s left of your privacy good-bye, the Panopticon is coming!

Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks

hat tip

The Axis of Evil is No Friend of PETA

I wonder if PETA even knows?

The Iranian government announced Feb. 3 that it had successfully launched live animals into space.

The feat was recorded by a camera mounted on the vehicle that provided a live video stream of the rocket’s ascent.

The Feb. 2 launch of the Kavoshgan 3 rocket came a year after Iran’s launch of its 27-kilogram Omid store-and-forward telecommunications satellite and was accompanied by a Feb. 3 unveiling of three new Iranian-built satellite designs and a new rocket engine.

Iran’s government-controlled Press TV on Feb. 3 broadcast videos of the launch as seen from the ground and from the rocket-mounted camera. Iranian officials said the rocket carried a rat, called Helmiz 1, as well as two turtles and a worm.

The expected duration of the capsule experiment was not disclosed.

Earlier versions of the Kavoshgan rocket were launched in February and November 2008.

At a Feb. 3 ceremony attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian Aerospace Organization unveiled three new telecommunications satellites, called Toulou, Mesbah 2 and Navid. Also unveiled at the ceremony was the Simorgh engine, which according to the Press TV report is designed to place a 100-kilogram satellite into a 500-kilometer orbit.

Iran’s Omid telecommunications satellite was launched in February 2009 into an orbit that the U.S. Space Surveillance Network tracking stations said had an apogee of 382 kilometers and a perigee of 242 kilometers, with an orbital inclination of 55 degrees relative to the equator.

Reaza Taghipour Anvari, the head of the Iranian Aerospace Organization, said in May that the Omid satellite had already reentered the Earth’s atmosphere. U.S. Space Surveillance Network data confirmed that the two-stage Safir-2 rocket placed an object into an orbit with an apogee of 382 kilometers and a perigee of 242 kilometers, inclined at 55 degrees relative to the equator.

I can hear Senator Shelby now; “See, we shouldn’t cancel the Constellation Project now, even the evul Iranians are working on sending men to the Moon!” LOL! 

I do wonder if the animals made it though.

Curiosity killed the rat?

Iran Says it Launched Animals into Orbit

Pork ‘n’ Space

Charlie Bolden, the current NASA administrator, finally released a bulletin yesterday  expressing the change in direction for the space agency, setting off firestorms of rage, and ecstasy.

Below I’m posting what was posted on the blog ‘Space Politics‘ yesterday and it exquisitely points out the yays and nays on the change of NASA policy.

Also it depicts the politicians who are enraged about the possibility of losing government pork in their districts:

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Some people hate the proposed NASA budget. Some people love it. Others are undecided. Some samplings of opinions in all three categories:

Love It

As you would expect, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation “welcomes” the proposal and its emphasis on commercial crew transportation. “President Obama has given NASA a bold and exciting new mission: to once again push the limits in technology and exploration, promote innovation, and foster a vibrant commercial spaceflight sector,” said CSF president Brett Alexander in a statement.

The Planetary Society asks Congress to endorse the budget proposal in a statement. The organization believes that the new approach, including both commercial crew and NASA technology development initiatives, “should enable human space exploration to move ahead more realistically and even more quickly than previous plans,” in the words of executive director Lou Friedman.

The X PRIZE Foundation also sees positives in the budget proposal. “While many are calling President Obama’s proposed grounding of NASA’s program to return to the Moon the ending of an era for space travel, the X PRIZE Foundation sees this new budget proposal as a visionary step for NASA and an opportunity to forge new ideas, develop much-needed technology, and channel the American Spirit spurring innovation and entrepreneurship.”

Hate It

Sen. Shelby isn’t the only member of Congress to issue a statement opposing NASA’s change in direction. Fellow Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions is also opposed to canceling Constellation. “This ill-advised decision, which comes on the 7th anniversary of the sacrifice of the space shuttle Columbia crew, abandons our nation’s nearly five-decade commitment to human space flight and will likely result in NASA taking a back seat to China, Russia, and India in space exploration,” he states. He predicts a “long, difficult battle” over the FY11 budget and the agency’s future.

Speaking of battles, the mayor of Huntsville, Alabama, Tommy Battle, vows to “do everything we can” to restore funding for Ares. “I respectfully ask you to please, sir, not give up on the Constellation program,” Battle states in a letter to the president. “Doing so does not just negate the billions of dollars already invested in safe, manned space flight – canceling this program puts limits on the dreams of our country.”

Several other members of Congress were, as one might expect, opposed to canceling Constellation, including Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), and Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX). All has previously expressed their concerns about the NASA budget and Constellation last week.

ATK, a company closely tied to the Ares 1, issued a statement in response to the budget proposal that, indirectly at least, expressed disapproval about the budget. “It is not clear why at this time the nation would consider abandoning a program of such historic promise and capability – with so much invested,” the ATK statement reads. “In the weeks and months ahead we are hopeful that the Congress and Administration will work together to deliver a budget that supports a program that capitalizes on the investments the nation has made in the Constellation program, closes the gap in US capability to return to space, and best assures continued US leadership in space.”

Undecided

Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, said that the NASA budget request “requires deliberate scrutiny” but didn’t pass judgment on it. “We will need to hear the Administration’s rationale for such a change and assess its impact on U.S. leadership in space before Congress renders its judgment on the proposals,” he states.

The Coalition for Space Exploration adopted a neutral tone in a statement, saying that it “awaits collaboration between the White House and Congress” on the budget proposal. “We urge the White House and Congress to come together under the proposed budget increase for NASA to develop a sustainable, long-term strategy,” it adds.

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I am not sorry to see the black hole that was named ‘The Constellation Project‘ get closed down. It was way over budget, behind schedule, it was never going to get the money required to get it back on track and I would never live to see the fruition of its goal of landing Americans on the Moon.

All it was going to do, and continue to do, was feed pork to the districts that housed the centers that were doing work connected to the project.

In essence, a jobs program for southern states who claim to be conservative when it suits them.

I call bullshit on that, as my former blog mom Kay In Maine would say.

The faux conservative senator from Alabama, Richard Shelby, is vowing to keep Constellation alive as long as he can, just to keep the pork-pie rolling to the Marshall Spaceflight Center, no matter if the actual equipment ever leaves the launch pad or not.

If he continues to put his districts’ interest ahead of the nations’, he deserves to choke on a heaping helping of that damn pork-pie, because that will be the death-knell of American human spaceflight, not Obama’s plan.

The ancient Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times” comes to mind in this situation.

A Spectrum of Opinions

SETI Radio Telescopes or UFO Sightings: Which Is More Credible ?

The SETI question and UFO issue has been around for about the same time. Frank Drake, the Father of SETI, has been looking for evidence of ET for 50 years via listening for radio transmissions via radio telescopes. Advocates for the UFO phenomenon have been seeking, and often finding physical trace evidence for same for over 60 years. The only difference between the two methods is that one is sanctioned by mainstream governments and the scientific community, the other is actively suppressed and ridiculed by same. Even when by the very definition of scientific empiricism (the collection of trace physical evidence) often favors visitations of some type occurring. And continues to occur everyday.

Searching the skies with radio telescopes BTW, have yet to prove anything, although there have been interesting close calls such as the ‘Wow’ signal. And to be fair, searching by this method for only 50 years isn’t nearly long enough to yield palpable results. 100 years should be enough to get a good baseline, if it gets that far. By that I mean even the Father of SETI is starting to have doubts about picking up signals from ET civilizations, due to the continuing evolution of communication methods of human civilization that is cutting down on the stray radio signals that are emitted:

After 50 fruitless years of scanning the stars for ET signals using radiotelescopes, Frank Drake, the godfather of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is acknowledging the obvious: SETI’s foundation might well have been erected atop wet cement.

It happened this week, just days after the New Zealand Defence Force became the latest foreign bureaucracy to announce its intentions to unload hundreds of UFO documents into the public domain.  The venue was London, and the occasion was 350th anniversary celebration of the venerated Royal Society. But the conservative science fraternity had never convened for a topic like this: ”The Detection Of Extraterrestrial Life And The Consequences For Science And Society.”

The assembly didn’t confront UFOs head-on (that would’ve been way too Whoopee Cushion for the distinguished panelists), but its attending luminaries included NASA reps and Arizona State physicist Paul Davies, whose “Are We Alone?” book made it into Hillary Clinton’s hands during a presumed UFO briefing by Laurance Rockefeller in 1995.

Drake, author of the famous equation projecting how as many as 10,000 civilizations might well be thriving amid the Milky Way galaxy, shared his latest epiphany with the BBC.  It went something like this: As cable, fiber optics, digital and other communications technologies continue to evolve, Earth is emitting fewer radio-band signals and growing more silent. Maybe that’s why we haven’t heard anything. Maybe advanced cosmic societies have dispensed with radio altogether. Consequently, SETI astronomers are now on the lookout for optical flashes that could account for ET laser communications.

“In searching for extraterrestrial life, we are both guided and hindered by our own experience,” Drake conceded. “We have to use ourselves as a model for what a technological civilisation must be, and this gives us guidance for what technologies might be present in the Universe.

“At the same time, this limits us because we are well aware that all the technologies that might be invented have not been invented; and in using ourselves as a model, we may not be paying attention to alternatives, as yet undiscovered and as yet unappreciated by us.”

(emphasis mine)

Really? Ya think? Alternatives to the sort of linear thinking that can’t even envision an ET civilization with a 50-year technological jump on us (to say nothing of a century, or a billion years)? Well, give The Royal Society an A for effort in the Look How Radically Futuristic We Can Be Dep’t. But as UFO events proceed without its acknowledgement, this is why the captains of official science look more like museum relics than the trailblazers they pretended to be this week.

One can look at the era of radio telescope SETI as an evolutionary step.

In 1924, the US Navy wanted to listen for telegraph signals from Mars .

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Go figure.

50 Years of Goose Eggs

hat tip

Canadian Non-Missiles

When are missiles ‘not’ missiles?

When they fly over Canada of course!

Residents of a small coastal Newfoundland community are wondering if several objects shaped like “huge, oversized bullets” seen soaring through the sky on Monday evening were missiles.

“I went to take a picture of the sunset and when I went to do it, I saw these objects in the sky,” said Darlene Stewart, a resident of Harbour Mille, N.L., who, with her boyfriend, said she watched one missile-like object for 10 minutes, snapping several photos before the mystery projectile disappeared from view. “At first I didn’t have a clue until we looked through the binoculars, but we still weren’t quite sure but what we’ve seen from movies … it looked like a missile.”

Government officials weren’t saying on Wednesday what the objects might have been, but the mystery caught the attention of news outlets and police in Newfoundland.

“We confirmed that it was something,” Sergeant Wayne Edgecombe told CBC News on Wednesday. But he wouldn’t reveal what the investigation uncovered.

A grainy photo shot by Ms. Stewart shows a tube-like object flying at a 45-degree angle to the left against a grey sky, with an orange flame trailing behind. Ms. Stewart said she saw two other similar objects on the horizon, including one that appeared to be flying straight up into the air.

Neighbour Emmy Pardy also saw the objects from her balcony and says she was afraid they might hit land.

“With the naked eye, it kind of looked like a huge, oversized bullet,” said Ms. Pardy, 47, who is the town’s postmaster. “It made me feel a bit uneasy because knowing that there were three of them out there, I was worried something was going on out in the bay … I was scared about where they would land.”

She says an RCMP officer called her at home twice and confirmed her suspicion that what the three neighbours saw were in fact missiles and were fired from the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, about 25 kilometres off the southern coast of N.L.

“[The officer] said it was a missile and it was sent off over the French islands, and it was set off by the army over there,” Ms. Pardy said.

Yesterday however, RCMP spokesman Sergeant Andrew Buckle would not confirm the sighting was a missile. “The investigation is ongoing and we will be working with our various partners,” he said. “At this point it is not a criminal investigation so we will be doing very minor checks on it.”

Captain Kendra Allison, a spokeswoman for the Department of National Defence, told the National Post there were no planned Canadian missile exercises off the eastern seaboard Monday evening.

“We don’t see any threat to Canada at this time based on the sightings,” she said. “As far as we’re concerned, things are as per normal.”

A NORAD spokesperson also confirmed that the United States had no planned missile activity of any sort in the area.

David Charbonneau, a spokesman for Public Safety Canada, said the government was aware of reports of public sightings of unidentified objects in the sky off the coast of Newfoundland, but referred all questions to the RCMP.

On Wednesday morning, the French military confirmed it had completed submarine-based missile testing off the northwest coast of France. The testing concluded at 4:55 a.m., Newfoundland standard time, but there was no confirmed start time. The test was the first in a series of six planned in 2010 for the M51 nuclear missile.

According to the French military, the M51 has a range of approximately 10,000 kilometres. The distance between the test site in Audierne Bay, France, and Harbour Mille is only 3,800 kilometres.

François Delattre, the French ambassador to Canada, who was at the National Post’s offices on Wednesday on unrelated business, appeared to have little knowledge of the incident.

“I have just arrived in Toronto, I am sorry I have no comment,” Mr. Delattre said.

Alex Morrison, a military analyst at Dalhousie University’s Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, said the photo taken by Ms. Stewart appears to be that of a missile and suggested it could have come from a submarine.

“It would surprise me if the French or Americans were going to be conducting missile shoots in that area that they would not have told the Canadian government,” he said, adding that he’s never heard of French military forces being deployed to the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon.

“I don’t think there’s any sizeable military there so it would lead me to believe that it might be a sea launch,” Mr. Morrison said.

“It may well be that the agreement with the Canadian government says that any public statements made will have to be made by the government doing the firing. There’s a whole bunch of maybes.”

Liberal MP Gerry Byrne, who represents the Newfoundland riding of Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, told CBC News that with Parliament prorogued, he is left with a number of unanswered questions about any possible military operations in the area.

“There’s a credible body of evidence that suggests there’s something spectacular happened off of our shore,” Mr. Byrne said. “Before this goes any farther, I think the government needs to actually respond very quickly with a straightforward, factual statement.”

He said he would question the ministers of defence, transport and public safety about the incident if the House of Commons was sitting.

“If indeed this was a man-made object, that it was a missile, was there any potential risk to health and safety from collateral damage should the missile fire have failed?”

What’s going on here? Missiles that aren’t missiles, the British Royal Society discussing alien life, the light show in Norway a couple of months back that was supposedly a ‘missile’ and giant metal spheres orbiting the sun?

Are aliens letting us know they’re here, or are they something related to us?

The plot thickens!

N.L. residents puzzled by ‘oversized bullets’ in sky

Let the NASA funding battle begin!

Well, the almost official word from the Obama White House has leaked out before the official release of the February 1st 2011 Fiscal Year Budget that concerns NASA funding.

And congress-critters whose states have a piece of the Constellation Program pie ain’t too happy:

President Barack Obama’s new plan for NASA could spark a fiery battle on Monday when it reaches the halls of Congress, where the agency’s current vision to send American astronauts back to the moon enjoys strong bipartisan support.

The Obama plan would effectively kill NASA’s Project Constellation — a program the nation has invested $9 billion in over the last six years; one that big, politically important states from Florida to California have a stake in.

The White House would encourage the development of a commercial rocket to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.

A Florida lawmaker called the plan “simply unacceptable.” A Maryland senator said she was troubled. And in Louisiana, where the tanks for the Ares I and Ares V rockets are being built, one legislator warned it would end the country’s position as the global leader in space.

“Based on initial reports about the administration’s plan for NASA, they are replacing lost shuttle jobs in Florida too slowly, risking US leadership in space to China and Russia, and relying too heavily on unproven commercial companies,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a former astronaut, key Obama space advisor, and chairman of the House space subcommittee.

“If the $6 billion in extra funding is for a commercial rocket, then the bigger rocket for human exploration will be delayed well into the next decade. That is unacceptable.”

Administration officials say the proposed fiscal 2011 budget — due to be released Monday — will call for a $6 billion increase in NASA’s budget over five years.

But under Obama’s plan, NASA would shift focus from sending astronauts back to the moon to expanding research at the International Space Station and encouraging the commercial crew launches, administration officials said Wednesday. Those priorities would come at the expense of the Constellation program for human space flight, which a presidentialcommission warned in October has been under-funded and was not going to meet its targets.

My take on this is that the money should subsidize the infant commercial space launch companies like SpaceX, it’ll be cheaper in the long run and it’ll help the commercial sector develop infrastructure capable of developing the Earth-Moon system for business and colonization.

NASA still has it’s place, like developing new technologies that’ll take humans beyond the Earth-Moon system.

What I don’t like is what the space program has turned into, a pork-laden jobs program that produces nothing for decades. And votes for congress-critters.

NASA Plan Will Be Battle