arXiv subjects

Richard Cathcart

Publications and source records attributed to Richard Cathcart.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2007

Protection of New York City Urban Fabric With Low-Cost Textile Storm Surge Barriers

Textile storm surge barriers, sited at multiple locations, are literally extensions of the city world famous urban fabric - another manifestation of the dominance of the City over local Nature. Textile Storm Surge Barriers (TSSB) are intended to preserve the City from North Atlantic Ocean hurricanes that cause sea waves impacting the densely populated and high-value real estate, instigating catastrophic, and possibly long-term, infrastructure and monetary losses. Complicating TSSB installation macroproject planning is the presence of the Hudson and other rivers, several small tidal straits, future climate change and other factors. We conclude that TSSB installations made of homogeneous construction materials are worthwhile investigating because they may be less expensive to build, and more easily replaced following any failure, than concrete and steel storm surge barriers, which are also made of homogeneous materials. We suppose the best macroproject outcome will develop in the perfect Macro-engineering planning way and at the optimum time-of-need during the very early 21st Century by, among other groups, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. TSSB technology is a practical advance over wartime harbor anti-submarine/anti-torpedo steel nets and rocky Churchill Barriers.

physics.gen-ph↗

arXiv2007

Inflatable Evergreen Polar Zone Dome (EPZD) Settlements

Sustaining human life at the Earth antipodal Polar Regions is very difficult especially during Winter when water-freezing air temperature, blizzards and whiteouts make normal human existence dangerous. To counter these environmental stresses, we offer the innovative artificial Evergreen Polar Zone Dome (EPZD), an inflated half-hemisphere with interiors continuously providing a Mediterranean Sea-like climate. The Evergreen EPZD structural theory is developed, substantiated by key computations that show it is possible for current building technology to construct and heat large enclosed volumes inexpensively. Specifically, a satisfactory result is reached by using sunlight reflectors and a special double thin film, which concentrates all available solar energy inside the EPZD while, at the same time markedly decreasing the heat loss to exterior Polar Region air. Someday a similar, but remarkably more technological, EPZD design may be employed at proposed Moon and Mars settlements. Key words: artificial hemisphere, inflatable film building, Polar Region homes, solar energy concentrator.

physics.gen-ph↗

arXiv2007

The Java-Sumatra Aerial Mega-Tramway

A mega-tramway based on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java is proposed to span Sunda Strait. The Java-Sumatra Aerial Mega-Tramway (JSAMT) will be self-elevating and will regularly and cheaply launch passengers and cargoes via two conveyor belt-like facilities using standard winged shipping containers like those currently used by international trucking and ocean shipping industries that are volplaned across the Sunda Strait. The JSAMT will be a self-sustaining toll facility free of any requirement for international loans or funding guarantees for its construction. Its existence will remove any immediate need for an expensive to dig/maintain Nusantara Tunnel. We offer the formative basic technical specifications for the JSAMT and indicate some of the physical and cultural geographical facts underpinning our macro-engineering proposal; offshoots of a perfected and tested JSAMT may be installed at Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka, the Gibraltar Strait and the Bering Strait by mid-21st Century.

physics.gen-ph↗

arXiv2007

Ocean Terracing

Artworks can improve humanity ability to apply macro-engineering principles which skirt or correct oceanographic problems impairing the economic usefulness of coastal land, the overhead airshed, and seawater temperature and salinity stability. A new form of Art, Ocean Art, is here proposed which centers on deliberate terracing of appropriate regions of our world ocean; a proposed example of macro-engineered useful Ocean Art is the technically possible 21-st Century terracing of the Mediterranean Sea. Ocean Art is applicable worldwide to places that might be practically improved by its judicious employment. Such Ocean Art may constitute an entirely unique category of solutions to coastal disaster prevention planning.

physics.gen-ph↗

arXiv2007

A Low-Cost Natural Gas/Freshwater Aerial Pipeline

Offered is a new type of low-cost aerial pipeline for delivery of natural gas, an important industrial and residential fuel, and freshwater as well as other payloads over long distances. The offered pipeline dramatically decreases the construction and operation costs and the time necessary for pipeline construction. A dual-use type of freight pipeline can improve an arid rural environment landscape and provide a reliable energy supply for cities. Our aerial pipeline is a large, self-lofting flexible tube disposed at high altitude. Presently, the term "natural gas" lacks a precise technical definition, but the main components of natural gas are methane, which has a specific weight less than air. A lift force of one cubic meter of methane equals approximately 0.5 kg. The lightweight film flexible pipeline can be located in the Earth-atmosphere at high altitude and poses no threat to airplanes or the local environment. The authors also suggest using lift force of this pipeline in tandem with wing devices for cheap shipment of a various payloads (oil, coal and water) over long distances. The article contains a computed macroproject in northwest China for delivery of 24 billion cubic meter of gas and 23 millions tonnes of water annually.

physics.gen-ph↗

arXiv2003

Geo-engineering Gone Awry: A New Partial Solution of Fermi's Paradox

Another partial solution of Fermi's famous paradox is proposed, based on our increased understanding of geophysics, geo-engineering and climatology. It has been claimed in the recent astrobiological literature (for instance, in the recent controversial "rare Earth" theory of Ward and Brownlee), that geological activity of a terrestrial planet is an important precondition for the emergence of complex metazoan life forms. Technological civilizations arising on such planets will be, at some point of their histories or another, tempted to embark upon massive geo-engineering projects. If, for some reasons only very recently understood, large-scale geo-engineering is in fact much more dangerous than previously thought, the scenario in which at least some of the extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way self-destruct in this manner gains plausibility. In addition, we speculate on possible reasons, both physical and culturological, which could make such a threat even more pertinent on an average Galactic terrestrial planet than on Earth.

physics.geo-ph↗