My Blog
New book in the works!
I’ve been working on a new book that takes place in the second half of the 21st century and it revolves around the discovery of a mysterious radio signal coming from somewhere in the Jovian system. At the time of this discovery, Earth has a space station orbiting Jupiter and a research station on Europa’s surface. These assets play a pivotal role in uncovering the source of this signal. What they eventually find is something no one ever expected!
This book is a work in progress and has nothing to do with my Quorvian Chronicles trilogy. The characters are all new and the plot is rather unique. A lot of research has gone into this book, and it is still ongoing. The book will contain a lot of scientific facts and historical references, but it is after all a science fiction story, so there’s plenty that comes straight out of my imagination!
If you’re interested in finding out more as the book gets closer to publication, please subscribe to my newsletter by entering your name and email address on my home page.
Oceans and Signs of Life found on another Planet
An illustration of what exoplanet K2-18 b may look like. (NASA; ESA; CSA; Joseph Olmsted/STScI)
Over the last few years, scientists have discovered water on several exoplanets. Recently, however, through the use of the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists at NASA have found more than just water on one such exoplanet. The scientists discovered signatures of dimethyl sulfide on the exoplanet, a molecule produced only by life on Earth. This exoplanet is only 120 light years from Earth and has a mass over 8 times that of our world. The exoplanet is called K2-18 b, and what makes this exoplanet even more interesting is it resides within the goldilocks zone, or the area of habitability around the star it orbits. Its hydrogen rich atmosphere contains an abundance of Carbon Dioxide and Methane, but also lacks ammonia. This has led them to believe that below the atmosphere, there may be oceans, and these oceans could be similar to the habitable oceans found on Earth. Imagine oceans with liquid water, similar to ours in temperature and pressure, and receiving safe energy from their sun. It seems to be a promising set of ingredients for life as we know it!
Webb Telescope’s First Image Direct Image of an Exoplanet
While these images show very little detail about these exoplanets, the mere fact they can even see them at all is absolutely amazing. For more information, here’s a link to an excellent article from Science News.
Here’s the James Webb telescope’s first direct image of an exoplanet | Science News
The Pentarrians
The Pentarrians: The Quorvian Chronicles - Book 3 was released last night!
Once again, the story follows Mark Johnson (former FBI agent, currently the President's Planetary Security Adviser) and Physicist Dr. Jessica Sanchez (currently the President's Science Adviser), as they face several challenges presented by the Nazzikas and a new race called the Pentarrians!
The Pentarrians were first mentioned in The New Renaissance, which is book 2 in the series. They are an ancient race with a highly advanced civilization, that have been providing advanced weapons to the Nazzikas. While their technology is far beyond that of any alien race we have met so far, they suffer from a genetic condition they have not been able to conquer. In other words, they are a dying race.
This book picks up 3 years after book 2 ends. Mark and Jessica are the proud parents of Mathew, their 2-year-old son, and Sarah, their 1-year-old daughter. President McManus is in his 3rd year in office. Elmer and Droknoth are both back. There are plenty of surprises and unexpected turns. Let’s just say, my imagination was on overdrive!
The New Renaissance
The New Renaissance: The Quorvian Chronicles - Book 2 was released yesterday! This is the sequel to BROOKHAVEN: The Quorvian Chronicles - Book 1, which was released last year at around this time. Both books are available on Amazon!
While the first book starts out as a murder mystery the story develops into a story of Alien Interference, First Contact, Washington Politics, and an Alien Attack on our world. The second book starts 6 months after Salvation Day, which is where the first book ended.
Here’s a description of The New Renaissance which doesn’t contain any major spoilers. Enjoy!
Ever since the Quorvians halted their interference with our science, our world began to understand the true wonders of the universe from a whole new perspective, as scientists around the world were busy re-writing the laws of physics. This led to rapid advancements in the production of energy, space travel, medicine, and technology. In the short 6 months since Salvation Day, trade and cultural exchanges between Humans and Quorvians were rapidly transforming both societies. The Quorvians were providing the Earth with technology and products not found on our world, while we were providing the Quorvians with art, music, entertainment, and items not found on their homeworld. The benefits to both worlds were undeniable as both species had entered a new era, which we refer to as The New Renaissance.
The Quorvians had saved us on Salvation Day, as the Nazzikas came close to annihilating our civilization. The economic sanctions imposed on the Nazzikas by the UXIL were devastating, and the Nazzikas set forth their plan for revenge against the Quorvians. Once again, FBI Special Agent Mark Johnson and Dr. Jessica Sanchez find themselves in the middle of significant events, starting with the establishment of the Quorvian embassy on Earth, followed months later by the opening of Earth’s embassy on Quorvana Prime. Eventually, an interstellar war breaks out as the Quorvians take on heavy losses at the hands of the Nazzikas.
The action-pact journey that ensues becomes an amazing roller coaster ride of emotions, as our heroes must deal with matters of survival and engage in battle where the lives of many must be taken in order to defeat the Nazzikas.
SpaceX Starship - the future of manned space travel?
SpaceX Starship
When I watched the first successful launch and landing of the SpaceX Starhopper test rocket on July 25, 2019, the first thing that came to my mind was, okay, so successfully flew a huge gas tank. It reached a maximum altitude of 66 feet and landed 490 feet away, so what? And then came the larger ones that looked more like a barn silo than it did a rocket. Some of those blew up, but some flew and landed. Okay, so now they have flying barn silos, so what? Finally, they added fins and a nosecone to these rockets, and now we have what looks like the rocket ships seen in the 1950s Sci-Fi space movies. When some of these rockets blew up during the early flight tests, I thought—is Elon Musk going to go down in history like Howard Hughes, another eccentric billionaire that built the Spruce Goose, the plane with the largest wingspan built at the time that could barely fly? But after seeing some of the other Starship flights that followed with successful launches and landings, I thought—they may actually have something there!
The SpaceX strategy of build, fly, make changes and repeat, seems to have worked very well for them. We’ve all seen the incredible success SpaceX has had with their Falcon 9 rockets. Today, the Falcon 9 rocket has clearly achieved amazing reliability and is currently the only orbital rocket that is fully reusable. The Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule have delivered supplies and passengers to the ISS, and are now responsible for the first all civilian orbital flight.
The success and reliability of the Falcon 9, combined with the amazing progress we have witnessed with the recent successful flight tests of the Starship, SpaceX won over many fans. (This author included.) In fact, it has caught the eyes of NASA to the point of awarding SpaceX with a $2.9 billion contract to build the lunar lander for the upcoming Artemis Mission to return to the moon. As of this writing, it appears that the lunar lander will be some variation of the Starship, which will provide NASA with a vehicle to land astronauts on the moon as well as provide a habitat for the beginning of a permanent lunar base.
Watch the video below and see for yourself why I suspect the Starship will become the future of manned space travel and speed up our the deployment of future manned space missions. The future may be here before we know it!
Evidence of more Earth-sized Planets
Current techniques for detecting exoplanets may be missing about half of the Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. The problem is that almost half of all stars are binary systems (which are two stars orbiting each other). Searching these binary systems for exoplanets can be difficult because of the glare of their companion stars. This is a definite problem for optical telescopes. Even NASA’s TESS exoplanet-hunting space telescope which detects exoplanets by changes in the light received from a star when a planet passes in front of it is also susceptible. As a planet transits the star it’s orbiting, light from the second star makes it much more difficult for TESS to detect it.
For more information, there is an excellent article recently published on phys.org: Astronomers uncover evidence that there could be many more Earth-sized planets than previously thought
Tracing Fast Radio Bursts
The first Fast Radio Burst (FRB) ever detected occurred in 2007, and it is known as the Lorimer Burst FRB 010724. It was detected by Professor Duncan Lorimer and his student David Narkevic by analyzing archived data captured in 2001 by the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia. Later on in 2010, 16 similar signals were detected, but these signals were traced back to the opening of microwave oven doors during a heating cycle, which in turn caused the oven’s magnetron as it was powered down. Several FRB’s have been detected in the years that followed.
According to a study published in The Astrophysics Journal, astronomers recently traced five FRBs back to their source galaxies using the Hubble Space Telescope. These sources are billions of light-years away from us. While the astronomers were unable to pinpoint their actual locations, they were able to determine that the FRBs came from the spiral arms of these distant galaxies.
One hypothesis that is supported by the Hubble-based research, is that one likely source are neutron stars with intensely powerful magnetic fields, called magnetars. These stars have a magnetic field trillions of times more powerful than our own. They suspect that the FRBs may be produced when young magnetars eject electromagnetic flares as a result of energetic events occurring on its surface. While this is sure to excite many astrophysicists, it still a mystery that has yet to be solved.
For more information on this, watch this video.
Nuclear Thermal Rockets
Popular Mechanics is reporting that the Pentagon wants to launch a Nuclear Thermal Rocket in 4 years. It appears that DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has announced they have selected the following contractors to start Phase 1 of this project: General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, and Blue Origin. The main goal to create a spacecraft that can travel from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit and back faster and more efficiently than chemical rockets. Eventually, these nuclear thermal rockets will be able to reach other places within our solar system. They expect a trip from Earth to Mars would take half the time it takes now with traditional chemical rockets.
The name of this project is DRACO, which stands for Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations.
You can read the entire Popular Mechanics article here.
Foundation
Isaac Asimov’s Foundation has been referred to by many as the greatest Science Fiction work of all time. Thinking back to my childhood, I believe Foundation was the first Sci-Fi book I read from cover to cover. Later, the trilogy became the center-piece of my science fiction book collection. In my opinion, Foundation rises above all of Asimov’s other works and I consider it his masterpiece.
Apple TV+ will be releasing their version of Foundation as a TV series. I must admit the trailer looks amazing! It would be interesting to see how far they take it. Will they cover the entire trilogy? Will they cover the other four Foundation books Asimov wrote? It does seem like the first season will naturally focus on the first book of the trilogy. Should they continue with the series, it would be interesting to see how they portray The Mule!
If you’re interested in seeing the trailer, click here.
FREE copy of White Stork!
While I was writing the Brookhaven book, I took a few days off to write a short story that takes place during World War II. It's about a German Colonel that defects to England with information and evidence demonstrating that aliens were helping the Germans with their war effort.
Subscribe to my newsletter and receive a FREE PDF copy of White Stork, a short story set in the same fictional universe as BROOKHAVEN - The Quorvian Chronicles and introduces you to the two alien races in the book. Click here to go to my home page and subscribe.
Brookhaven has been Released!
BROOKHAVEN - The Quorvian Chronicles - The idea for this book started several years ago with a simple thought. What if the science taught in our classrooms, the same science from which we derive our technologies that allow us to build our amazing machines, which form the cornerstone of our modern civilization, was flawed?
What if some external force was manipulating the results of our experiments, leading us to form incorrect conclusions which result in the derivation of faulty equations to describe our physical world?
What if extraterrestrials were behind this? Doing so intentionally to slow down our progress, our advances in science, all because they fear us. A fear based on their perception that we are all a hostile and violent race of savages that might one day attack their world.
One day, someone would stumble upon this alien interference. An event that eventually convinces the government to take action by capturing and interrogating an alien. The interrogation leads to the discovery of the unimaginable magnitude of this deception that has been going on for many years.
What happens next is beyond our imagination!
Brookhaven has been Released!
I posted too soon! I didn't think I would make it on time, but I did! The release date of 12/7/2020 is here. I uploaded it earlier today and was told that it would be released within the next 72 hours, so I thought I had missed the release date. I decided moments ago to search on Amazon for the book, not expecting to find it and to my surprise there it was!
Brookhaven out soon on Amazon!
Brookhaven - The Quorvian Chronicles has been uploaded to Amazon. The Kindle version should be available on Amazon within the next 3 days. Today would have been my release date. Lesson learned, have the book ready and upload it 3 days prior to its release. The formatting took longer than expected too, but it looks great!
Brookhaven to be released soon!
Brookhaven - The Quorvian Chronicles, will be out shortly. I’m shooting for a release date of 12/7/2020. To make sure you don’t miss anything, feel free to subscribe to my newsletter. The signup form is on my home page.
Welcome to my new website!
My website is finally online! From the beginning I wanted to design this website with simplicity and responsiveness in mind. I wanted simplicity for easy navigation and to present information in a clean, effective way. I wanted responsiveness because these days most people are browsing the web on smart phones, so I designed the website to work for both mobile users and desktop users. Please feel free to browse around and let me know what you think. While you’re at it, please sign up for my newsletter on the Home Page of this website.
First Post
I’ve been working on the website all day. I just added a Blog and this is my first entry. On to the Contact page.