Life on Planets

The formation of life is a complex and long process. In summary, life forms where there is water or similar liquid that is solvent and transporter of molecules. The temperature should be adequate for chemical reactions to happen and stable enough for sustained chemical cycles. This last one is my addition, the medium where the organic materials converge and form a living cell should be relatively still like the puddles. Once an organism is formed and it starts reproducing itself, it can spread to harsh environments and stay alive there as well.

When we look at the planets in our solar system, there is no planet that satisfies all these criteria other than the Earth. The planets and their moons beyond Earth are cold and wouldn't allow complex organisms to form. There may be primitive organisms that adapted to their extreme surroundings. Jupiter and Saturn moons that have geysers have the highest potential for life. Planets closer to the sun are too hot for life forms to form. The clouds of Venus may contain traces of organic material. However, the turbulent atmosphere of the planet is not still enough for such molecules to combine and form life.

I am not an expert on the topic. I derived my conclusions, based on the scientific materials I read and my observations. There would definitely be life on exoplanets similar to Earth. However, due to laws of physics, these life forms cannot interact with each other because of the immense distance between them.

Mars STOL Aircraft

I had previously proposed a flying aircraft for Mars. Daniel Riley’s YouTube video on “Blown Wing STOL Plane” inspired me for a new design. Daniel had proposed hidden air blowers inside the wings to increase Coandă effect and enable STOL (short takeoff and landing). In my design, air entering from the intakes below the wing will be accelerated by the heat of Plutonium 238. Mars atmosphere is mainly carbon dioxide that has the highest vapor pressure of any gas. This improves the efficiency of the system. The forward thrust will be achieved by Plutonium 238 powered Carnot engines that drive the duct fans. Air blown on the wings reduces the takeoff and stall speed for the plane. Therefore, the heat generated by the Plutonium 238 isotope would be enough the fly the plane.

The aircraft will have bicycle like spoked wheels. These will enable the plane to accelerate on the ground and protect the wings in case of crash. The wheels should be elastic enough to return to their original shape after impact. The central wheels will have the spokes covered. They will double as vertical stabilizers during flight. The wheels will have larger diameter than the wings to protect them against the surface rocks. Plutonium will produce continuous thrust which will keep the wings in the horizontal orientation even on the ground. The plane will navigate on the ground using this thrust. The maneuvering will be achieved using differential thrust.

The small fuselage of the plane will contain the central control unit and the scientific research bay which is powered by Plutonium 238.

Mars STOL aircraft will be deployed to Mars inside a cylindrical capsule, an ideal shape for a space payload. The capsule will have four engines to slow down the capsule after entering the Mars atmosphere. The propellant tanks will be placed inside the empty spaces between the wings and the wheels. Once the propellant is depleted, the aircraft will be released from the capsule to let it fly by itself. The empty capsule will than crash on Mars.

On the Healthcare Industry

My recent negative experience on healthcare system, led me to write this article. In recent decades, healthcare industry started to be treated as a profit center for countries like tourism. This led to building of charming architectural buildings, named modern hospitals that are poorly designed in terms of functionality (complex layout for the patients who need to move between services). Additionally, too much focus on profitability led to inflated treatment costs and subpar service quality.

As a result, public healthcare deficit increased dramatically. This is a problem I couldn’t find a proper solution to. The key part of the solution is not to treat healthcare system as a profit center for the country which inflates the costs. Actions should be taken to reduce the treatment costs which includes the time and money.

Another topic regarding healthcare is the lack of multidisciplinary thinking. Human biology is too complex for any individual to master it perfectly. Additionally, a solution that works in most cases doesn’t mean that it would work in all cases. I have a very bad experience with that. My dad had ALS disease. A month ago, he started to choke while eating. The choking didn’t stop for a while and we called for ambulance. The healthcare personal injected medicines to improve his respiration. However, due to his ALS disease the medicines had the opposite effect and he needed to be intubated which led to his death. I am not a fan of applying AI to everything. However, in my case if the doctors have consulted AI, a different medication could have been used.

My proposition is that we need multidisciplinary doctors who can see the big picture. They would be able consult and coordinate with the specialists and AI during their treatment. New generation of doctors should be thought to work in coordination with AI. Critical point on this approach is to develop the coordination process such that the doctors should not turn into dummy users who just repeat what AI had told them. This is also a security problem for a country. Too much reliance on AI may be taken advantage by the enemy hackers and manipulated AI results would result big healthcare problems.

How To Protect Your Rocket?

The satellites are critical for a country’s military defense and offence. However, their launch is very susceptible to interception by a ballistic missile. During launch and at lower altitudes, the rockets are protected by the fighter jets. However, compared to the journey of a rocket, this protection is very limited.

During World War 2, the vulnerable bomber planes were escorted by fighter planes against the enemy attacks. This was the norm until the introduction of B17 Flying Fortress. B17 could defend itself and didn’t require fighter escort. This idea can be implemented on the space rockets as well. Not all rockets need to be in this configuration. However, during time of dispute and war, such self-defending rockets would be very beneficial.

A self-defending rocket can be implemented using the synergy rocket formation I proposed earlier. In short, it is a rocket formed by strapping at least three similar rockets together in a closed loop formation. With such a configuration, the rocket can carry different payloads in each of the independent payload bays and one can have anti-ballistic missiles.

Trafalgar in Space

The satellite clusters orbit the earth like a railway train pointing at the same direction. I imagined a satellite outside of this cluster at a higher orbit perpendicular to this formation. It reminded me of the Battle of Trafalgar. Then, I thought of an offensive tactic to annihilate the enemy satellite cluster.

The offensive satellite would orbit at a higher altitude than the targeted satellites. It would not have protruding solar panels to minimize damage from space debris. It would be mainly a flying propellant tank with liquid hydrogen and oxygen. The liquid hydrogen and oxygen would be used to maneuver the satellite during attack and power the electronics on board with hydrogen fuel cells. Carbon nanotube bullets would be used to shot down the enemy satellites. The bullets would be accelerated using the hydrogen and oxygen on board.

The offensive tactic would be simple dive into the targeted satellites orbit with the use of liquid propellant thrusters. During this dive the satellite would retain its orbital speed. It’s like a floating submarine dive underwater using its propellers. Once the propeller stops, the submarine would slowly surface again. In case of satellite, high orbital speed (centrifugal force overcoming the gravity) would push it back to its higher orbit slowly. Due to attacking satellite’s higher speed compared to the other satellites in that orbit, the attacker would pass over them. As it passes by it would shoot back at the satellite in target like a Mongol Archer shooting back while riding his horse. This would allow the debris to be left behind and opposite momentum generated by the bullet fire to add to the satellite's forward momentum.

Once the attacking satellite’s fuel is depleted, it would Kamikaze dive on an enemy military satellite.

The Sounds of The Universe

We have been sending explorers throughout the solar system for many years. Those explorers contained many sensors onboard. Unfortunately, microphone was not one of them (Martian Perseverance rover carries two microphones). I would like to propose a series of small solar and planetary explorers that carry multiple microphones on board. There would be different types of microphones to capture different wavelengths. Even though, the space is vacuum and sound waves cannot travel in vacuum; the electromechanical sound sensors would pick up noise. The noise would be induced by the cosmic rays, gravity fields, and many more.

People are fascinated by the highly computer enhanced images captured by Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. This fascination can be extended by the surround sound of the universe. The microphones are more durable and can operate at more extreme conditions compared to video cameras. Additionally, it is much easier to capture surround sound and play it. Almost all sound systems are stereo and there are more surround sound systems on earth than 3D TVs.

Venus and Mars have atmosphere. Martian Perseverance rover has recorded the sound of Mars. However, it is in mono and microphone’s sensitivity is limited. Flying small planetary explorers can be built to explore Venus and Mars which would record the sounds of the planets as they explore them on air. Venus’ extreme temperatures and dust storms make it difficult for a camera to operate. However, the conditions are acceptable for surround high bandwidth sound recording. Additionally, sound recording would require less electrical and processing power compared to video capture. Allowing smaller and lighter flying explorers.

Synergy Rocket Formation

I had previously proposed a synergy rocket design on April 21, 2025 and would like to improve on that design. The idea is to create synergy by combining at least three rockets in a closed formation in order to create additional thrust via air flowing between the rockets and reducing the complexity of recovering the first stage of the rocket.

In synergy rocket formation, the rockets of same type are strapped together in a closed formation. The objective is to enclose the air passing between the rockets. At the bottom of the rockets, there will be additional enclosures connecting the nozzles and directing the air flow. These enclosures will not protrude from the rocket walls not to induce additional drag. These enclosures will direct the air in line with the rockets’ direction of movement. The air passing by will be heated by the rocket nozzles to generate additional thrust like in high bypass turbofan engines. Unlike those engines, there will be no duct fan. Therefore, the thrust gain will be limited.

Strapped rockets would induce too much stress on the connection points due to differences on thrust of each rocket. In order to overcome this problem, each rocket nozzle will have controlled ventilation window that release some of the exhausted gas into the enclosed air bypass canal. As a result, thrust lost on ventilated exhaust gas on the engine nozzle will be recovered by the thrust generated by the bypassed air. This will change the direction of the thrust vector to minimize stress and improve maneuverability. Also increase the thrust generated by the bypassed air.

Only first stages of the rockets will be strapped. The upper stages will move independently after stage separation. The strapped rockets will have much higher base area compared to a single rocket. Therefore, recovering the first stage will be a much simpler problem.