text:
OVERVIEW

Before the ARGO floats were deployed, there were so few temperature and salinity observations at depths below 700 meters that the NODC does not present ocean heat content data during that period for depths of 0-2000 meters on an annual basis. That is, the NODC only presents its annual ocean heat content data for the depths of 0-2000 meters starting in 2005. The NODC’s annual ocean heat content data (0-2000 meters) for global oceans are here; for the Indian Ocean, see here; for the Atlantic Ocean, they’re here; and for the Pacific Ocean, data can be found here. The NODC now only presents its long-term data (1955 to present) for depths of 0-2000 meters in pentadal form. They had provided the long-term annual data for the depths of 0-2000 meters for a very short time period, but removed it from their website as soon as they released the pentadal data. There are two problems with the pentadal data. It mysteriously adds more than 30% to the long-term trend when compared to the formerly available annual data for those depths. (See the post here.) And the 5-year “averaging” of the pentadal data makes the dataset useless in attribution studies. 5-year filters have been used by the climate science community for years to mask responses to El Niño and La Niña events, which also have significant impacts on ocean heat content data.

So that leaves us with only 8 years of annual ocean heat content data to examine for the depths of 0-2000 meters. That’s okay. We can learn something from the 8 years of data.

[Figure 1]

Figure 1

Keep in mind, ocean heat content data is unlike surface temperature and lower troposphere temperature data. With ocean heat content data, the heat is either there or it’s not. There is no unrealized heat. Roger Pielke Sr. provided a more detailed explanation in his blog post here.

Also keep in mind that Balmaseda et al (2013) Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content (paywalled), of which Kevin Trenberth was one of the authors, began their abstract with:

  The elusive nature of the post-2004 upper ocean warming has exposed uncertainties in the ocean’s role in the Earth’s energy budget and transient climate sensitivity.

That falls right in line with the period from 2005 to 2012, for which we have annual data. And as we’ll see, the warming is still elusive.

Ever since the NODC released their ocean heat content data for the depths of 0-2000 meters and published Levitus et al (2012), it seems that each time a skeptic writes a blog post or answers a question in an interview, in which he or she states that global surface temperatures haven’t warmed in “X” years, a global warming enthusiast will counter with something to the effect of: global warming hasn’t slowed because ocean heat content continues to show warming at depths of 0-2000 meters. Recently, those same people are linking Balmaseda et al (2013) and claiming the warming of ocean heat content data continues.

It is true that the NODC’s ARGO-era ocean heat content (0-2000 meters) continues to warm globally, but always recall that the ARGO data had to be adjusted, modified, tweaked, corrected, whatever, in order to create that warming. That is, the “raw” ocean heat content data for 0-2000 meters shows the decreased rate of warming after the ARGO floats were deployed. (See the post here.) Also, while the much-revised NODC ocean heat content data for 0-2000 meters might show warming globally, it shows very little warming for the Northern Hemisphere oceans since 2005. See Figure 1. Only about 7% of the warming of ocean heat content for the depths of 0-2000 meters occurred in the Northern Hemisphere from 2005 to 2012, yet the surface area of the Northern Hemisphere oceans represents about 43% of the surface of the global oceans.

Can well-mixed human-created greenhouse gases pick and choose between the hemispheres, warming one but not the other? One might think that’s very unlikely.

Something else to consider: the Northern Hemisphere warming of ocean heat content for depths of 0-2000 meters occurs in only one ocean basin, and it’s not one of the big ones.

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE OCEAN HEAT CONTENT – 0-700 AND 0-2000 METERS

Before we begin with the individual ocean basins, let’s take a look at the change in the ocean heat content of the Northern Hemisphere from 2005 to 2012, for the depth ranges of 0-700 meters and 0-2000 meters. See Figure 2. There was a comparatively minor warming in the Northern Hemisphere at depths of 0-2000 meters from 2005 to 2012. But the upper 700 meters in the Northern Hemisphere cooled. The difference is provided to show the additional warming that occurred at depths of 700 to 2000 meters.

[Figure 2]

Figure 2

NORTH INDIAN OCEAN HEAT CONTENT – 0-700 AND 0-2000 METERS

Before we begin, recall that the North Indian Ocean is not like the North Atlantic and North Pacific. The North Indian Ocean basically ends in the tropics with the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, both bordering Asia, while the North Atlantic and North Pacific have large extratropical portions. The North Indian Ocean is comparatively small for that reason.

If manmade greenhouse gases were capable of warming the global oceans, one would have to assume the warming would be similar to what’s taking place in the North Indian Ocean. As shown in Figure 3, the ocean heat content for the North Indian Ocean is warming at depths of 0-700 meters and 0-2000 meters—and at 700-2000 meters.

[Figure 3]

Figure 3

On the other hand, the ocean heat content data for the North Atlantic and North Pacific are not cooperating with the hypothetical warming of the oceans by manmade greenhouse gases.

NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN HEAT CONTENT – 0-700 AND 0-2000 METERS

RealClimate recently published a post titled “The Answer is Blowing in the Wind: the Warming Went into the Deep End”. It’s about the Balmaseda et al (2013) paper. There Rasmus Benestad writes about the North Atlantic:

  A weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) may have played a role in the deep ocean warming.

So let’s take a look at the North Atlantic ocean heat content data. Based on the linear trend, the ocean heat content data of the North Atlantic for the depths of 0-2000 meters haven’t warmed from 2005 to 2012. See Figure 4. And the data for depths of 0-700 meters show cooling in the North Atlantic. The additional warming at the depths of 700-2000 meters (illustrated by the “difference”) was comparable to the cooling at 0-700 meters, inferring there might simply have been an exchange of heat between two depth ranges, but there is no evidence of manmade greenhouse gas-driven warming in the North Atlantic from 2005-2012.

[Figure 4]

Figure 4

Also recall that Mauritzen et al (2012) IMPORTANCE OF DENSITY-COMPENSATED TEMPERATURE CHANGE FOR DEEP NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN HEAT UPTAKE (paywalled) found that while the upper 2000 meters of the North Atlantic warmed since the 1950s, the deep ocean below 2000 meters cooled, suggesting an exchange of heat between the deep ocean and the depths above 2000 meters. That cooling below 2000 meters is obviously not considered in the NODC ocean heat content data. Mauritzen et al (2012) was discussed in my post Is Ocean Heat Content All It’s Stacked up to Be? under the heading of SPEAKING OF STILL-TO-BE-DISCOVERED SUBSURFACE OCEAN PROCESSES.

NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN HEAT CONTENT – 0-700 AND 0-2000 METERS

There have been a number of blog posts about Balmaseda et al (2013) by proponents of the hypothesis of manmade global warming, including the RealClimate post linked above and at least one post at SkepticalScience. From what I can gather from those posts, Balmaseda et al (2013) are basically saying this: when La Niña events dominate, warm water is forced to depths greater than 300 meters, driven there by the stronger-than-normal trade winds associated with the La Niñas. According to the new and improved Oceanic NINO Index, starting in 2005, there have been 5 La Niña events and only 2 El Niños. Clearly, La Niña events dominated the last 8 years. Therefore, we would expect the ocean heat content of the North Pacific to be showing all sorts of excessive warming.

But the NODC’s annual ocean heat content data for the North Pacific shows cooling, Figure 5, not warming, for the depths of 0-2000 meters. And the depths of 0-700 meters have cooled at an even more drastic rate. If the stronger trade winds associated with the La Niña events have contributed to the warming of the North Pacific ocean heat content from 700-2000 meters (shown as the “difference”), then the only thing those stronger trade winds did was prevent the 0-2000 meter data from cooling as quickly as the 0-700 meter data.

[Figure 5]

Figure 5

FURTHER INFORMATION

I linked this post earlier, but I’ll link it again. For a detailed discussion of the problems with ocean heat content data refer to Is Ocean Heat Content All It’s Stacked up to Be?

For introductory discussions of how the ocean heat content data for the depths of 0-700 meters indicate the oceans warmed naturally, and discussions of the natural processes that caused the warming, refer to my illustrated essay “The Manmade Global Warming Challenge” [42MB]. And if you’re looking for a much more-detailed discussion of the natural warming of the global oceans, refer to my book _WHO TURNED IN THE HEAT?_ It was introduced in the post “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About El Niño and La Niña”. It’s for sale in pdf form at US$8.00.

CLOSING

With their continuing failed attempts, the alarmist wing of the climate science community still has a lot of work to do to explain the warming of the global oceans, or lack thereof. If they can’t explain why the ocean heat content data of the North Atlantic and North Pacific have not warmed, they can’t claim greenhouse gases are responsible for the warming of the ocean heat content in the Southern Hemisphere. They also have problems with the long-term data, as we’ve been presenting and discussing for a few years. But first…

SkepticalScience’s Rob Painting provides a reasonable explanation of the hypothetical cause of greenhouse gas-driven warming of the global oceans in the post Observed Warming in Ocean and Atmosphere is Incompatible with Natural Variation. Painting writes (my boldface):

  Arguably the most significant climate-related impact of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, is that they trap more heat in the ocean. Over the last half-century around 93% of global warming has actually gone into heating the ocean. A LITTLE-KNOWN FACT IS THAT THE OCEANS ARE ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY HEATED BY SUNLIGHT (SHORTWAVE RADIATION) ENTERING THE SURFACE LAYERS. Geothermal heat emanating from deeper layers of the Earth does contribute a small amount to ocean warming but, on the time scale of decades & centuries, this contribution is effectively constant as it is determined by the rate of radioactive decay.

  So how do greenhouse gases accomplish this ocean heating? This is discussed in this SkS post, but briefly; greenhouse gases radiate heat (longwave radiation) back toward the surface and, although they cannot penetrate into the ocean itself, they warm the uppermost surface of the thin cool-skin layer. The thermal gradient through this layer dictates the rate of heat loss from the (typically) warmer ocean surface, to the cooler atmosphere above. When greenhouse gases increase, more longwave radiation is directed back at the ocean surface, which warms the cool-skin layer, lowers the thermal gradient, and consequently reduces the rate of heat loss. The sum effect is that the oceans trap more of the sun’s energy and therefore warm over time.

While Painting does note that longwave radiation from greenhouse gases only impacts the top few millimeters (the skin) of the surface, he fails to consider that evaporation occurs at the surface, he fails to consider that the ocean release heat primarily through evaporation, and he fails to consider that when the ocean heat content data of the global oceans are divided into logical subsets, they indicate the oceans warmed naturally.

For almost 4 years, I’ve been illustrating how (and presenting the natural processes through which) specific La Niña events are responsible for the warming of ocean heat content in the tropical Pacific. More recently, I’ve shown that without the 1973-76 and 1995/96 La Niña events, Figure 6, the ocean heat content of the tropical Pacific would have cooled since the 1950s. It’s tough to claim manmade greenhouse gases are responsible for the long-term warming when that warming relies on only 4 years of data.

[Figure 6]

Figure 6

And I’ve been showing that the warming of the ocean heat content (0-700 meters) for the extratropical North Pacific is dependent on a 2-year shift and without that upward shift, which is likely caused by a change in wind patterns there, the ocean heat content of the North Pacific north of the tropics would also cool since the 1950s. Again, it’s tough to claim anthropogenic greenhouse gases caused the warming in this portion of the North Pacific when the ocean heat content data there would cool if you remove just 2 years of data.

[Figure 7]

Figure 7

(Note: Almost 2 decades ago Kevin Trenberth discussed the same wind pattern-based upward shift in the sea level pressure of the extratropical North Pacific. Refer to Trenberth and Hurrell (1995) Decadal coupled atmosphere-ocean variations in the North Pacific Ocean. See their Figure 6, which shows the sea level pressure of a portion of the extratropical North Pacific. One would think Trenberth should also know that same shift exists in extratropical North Pacific sea surface temperature and ocean heat content data.)

Curiously, when you combine those ocean heat content subsets for the Pacific Ocean with their different natural warming and cooling periods, Figure 8, they mimic the long-term warming of the global ocean heat content data, which alarmists happily but falsely claim is caused by manmade greenhouse gases.

[Figure 8]

Figure 8

To conclude this post, I’ll paraphrase the opening sentence of Balmaseda et al (2013):

The elusive nature of the post-2004 upper ocean warming CONTINUES TO expose uncertainties in the ocean’s role in the Earth’s energy budget and transient climate sensitivity.

SOURCES

The annual ocean heat content data (0-700 meters and 0-2000 meters) presented in Figures 1 through 5 are available from the NODC webpage here. The NODC ocean heat content data for Figures 6, 7 and 8 are available through the KNMI Climate Explorer.

question: What does the text say about the earth's crust?


split: test

text:
The launch of the next Moon mission could be just four months away. India plans to return to the Moon in a big way with the ambitious Chandrayaan-2, which includes an orbiter, lander, and a small rover. If it all succeeds, it will be India's first soft landing on another world, and only the second such landing since the end of the Apollo and Luna era. For India, landing success would be "a stepping stone for future exploration missions to other planets," according to Indian Space Research Organisation Satellite Centre (ISAC) director M. Annadurai.

[Chandrayaan-2 lander deploying rover]
Chandrayaan-2 lander deploying rover _ISRO_

The orbiter is a capable one, planned to carry eight instruments into a 100-kilometer, circular, polar lunar orbit, following on the work of India's previous orbiter, Chandrayaan-1. It has a nominal mission lifetime of one year. The lander and rover payloads are more limited, as befits the first demonstration of a soft lander. The lander and rover have nominal lifetimes of one lunar daytime (14 Earth days). I was unable to find any information on whether there is any possibility that the lander or rover could wake up again after the long lunar night, as China's Chang'e 3 lander has done for years. It's enough to hope that India can follow its first and only lunar orbiter with its first lunar lander.

Mission Profile

Chandrayaan-2 is planned to launch in March from ISRO's Sriharikota launch center aboard a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark 2 (GSLV Mk 2) rocket, making it ISRO's first deep-space launch on its newer, heavier launch vehicle. The combined mass of the three component spacecraft is 3250 kilograms, dramatically larger than the approximately 1300-kilogram mass of both Chandrayaan-1 and Mars Orbiter Mission, both of which launched on smaller Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLVs). (For fun, you can download and build a paper model of the GSLV Mk 2 spacecraft here.)

The GSLV will place Chandrayaan-2 into an elliptical Earth parking orbit, enlarging it over days or weeks with periapsis burns to raise the orbit apogee. Eventually, the apogee will be high enough that a burn can send the spacecraft on to a lunar transfer trajectory. A lunar orbit insertion burn will place Chandrayaan-2 into an elliptical orbit and the spacecraft will begin braking at periapsis to reduce its orbit to a 100-kilometer circle. I haven't found a reference that says how long this process is expected to take from launch to final orbit, but a similar process took Chandrayaan-1 three weeks, from October 22 to November 12, 2008.

[Chandrayaan-2 launch, lunar transfer, and landing trajectory]
Chandrayaan-2 launch, lunar transfer, and landing trajectory Modified from a presentation given by ISRO director M. Annadurai to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in June 2017.

Once the spacecraft is in its science orbit at the Moon, the lander mission can begin. While the orbiter doesn't care much about what phase the Moon is in, the lander and rover need sunlight for warmth and power, so the timing of launch will be dictated by the necessity to get the lander on the ground at its landing site very soon after local dawn. However, the concept of dawn is a bit tricky, because the landing site is planned to be near the south pole. I haven't seen any recent information on the specific landing site choice. As of 2012, an earlier concept that involved Russian collaboration had proposed landing sites that were quite near the South Pole indeed, at 87.2 and 88.5 degrees south.

The landing will happen entirely autonomously. The lander will separate from the orbiter and immediately perform a deboost maneuver, changing its orbit around the Moon to one with an 18-kilometer periapsis. When it reaches periapsis, the lander will begin the "rough braking phase," braking to reduce its orbit altitude to 7 kilometers.

At an altitude of 7 kilometers, the lander will use a camera to take photos of the lunar surface and determine its relative position and velocity compared to its onboard map of the landing region. The lander will autonomously determine the trajectory necessary to bring it to its desired landing site, and steer itself to a location 100 meters above the site, where it will come to a hover. It will use a hazard avoidance sensor to map the surface for potential hazards and select a safe location for touchdown. The lander will slowly descend until it reaches 2 meters above that location. Then it will cut its engines. The lander will fall to the surface, its four lander legs absorbing the shock of landing. The rover will roll out of the lander shortly after the landing in order to make the most of its brief, two-week primary mission.

[Chandrayaan-2 landing trajectory]
Chandrayaan-2 landing trajectory From M. Annadurai et al. presentation to the 10th IAA Symposium on the Future of Space Exploration, Torino, Italy, 27-29 June, 2017.

Orbiter

The orbiter is physically similar to Chandrayaan-1. It is three-axis stabilized with reaction wheels. The orbiter carries five science instruments and two supporting instruments.

-   TERRAIN MAPPING CAMERA 2 (TMC-2) is based upon TMC (a predecessor on Chandrayaan-1) and will perform 3D mapping of the lunar surface using two cameras.
-   COLLIMATED LARGE ARRAY SOFT X-RAY SPECTROMETER (CLASS) is based upon C1XS (a predecessor on Chandrayaan-1) and will map abundance of major rock-forming elements on the Moon including Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti, and Fe. Assisting it is the SOLAR X-RAY MONITOR (XSM), which measures solar x-ray emission.
-   CHANDRA'S ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION EXPLORER(CHACE-2) is a neutral mass spectrometer that is based upon CHACE (a predecessor on Chandrayaan-1's Moon Impact Probe).
-   SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR (SAR) will perform radar mapping of the surface in both L and S bands of the radio spectrum. It has heritage from MiniSAR on Chandrayaan-1 but will be the first L-band radar mapper to orbit the Moon.
-   IMAGING INFRA-RED SPECTROMETER (IIRS) is sensitive to light with wavelengths between 0.8 and 5 microns and has the specific goal of mapping the abundance of hydroxl ions and molecular water.
-   Finally, the ORBITER HIGH RESOLUTION CAMERA (OHRC) will perform high-resolution imaging of the landing site prior to the lander mission.

[CAD model of Chandrayaan-2, launch configuration]
CAD model of Chandrayaan-2, launch configuration Chandrayaan-2 consists of an orbiter, lander, and small rover. Here, the spacecraft is shown in its launch configuration. _From a presentation by M. Annadurai to the 60th UN COPUOS meeting._

Lander

Physically, the lander is shaped like a truncated square-based pyramid, built around a cylinder that houses the substantial propellant tank. It will perform inertial navigation throughout the descent using its Laser-gyro-based inertial reference unit and accelerometer package, LIRAP. The propulsion system includes four throttleable engines that can each provide 800 newtons of thrust, and 8 attitude rockets of 50 newtons each. The lander will communicate direct to Earth using a steerable, dual-gimbal, S-band radio antenna.

The lander has multiple cameras in its Hazard Detection and Avoidance (HDA) system, which it will use to determine horizontal velocity from feature tracking and identify the landing site using pattern matching. HDA also contains microwave and laser altimeters and a laser Doppler velocimiter. The HDA system collects data and instructs the rockets to fire to steer the lander to the landing site. I didn't find any reference that indicated whether the lander has the ability to photograph the landscape it's sitting on. Surely it must, but I don't know.

Once on the ground, the lander will deploy its science payload:

-   INSTRUMENT FOR LUNAR SEISMIC ACTIVITY (ILSA) will study moonquakes. Large enough quakes could allow it to study the Moon's deep interior, potentially from a polar position not accessible to the Apollo seismometers, which would be cool. This experiment will be a lot cooler if the lander is capable of surviving multiple lunar days.
-   CHANDRA’S SURFACE THERMOPHYSICAL EXPERIMENT (CHASTE) will measure thermal properties of the lunar surface.
-   RADIO ANATOMY OF MOON BOUND HYPERSENSITIVE IONOSPHERE AND ATMOSPHERE (RAMBHA-LANGMUIR PROBE) will measure near surface plasma density and how it changes over the course of the lunar daytime. According to a recent _Nature_ article, lunar plasma is thought to participate in the levitation of lunar dust, a problem for future human exploration.

And, of course, the lander will carry a rover. The rover is very small, roughly Sojourner-sized, at 20 kilograms. Like NASA's Mars rovers, the Chandrayaan-2 rover uses a rocker-bogie suspension system supporting six independently motorized wheels, but unlike NASA's rovers its corner wheels do not steer. Therefore, it steers by rotating the wheels at different rates, like a tank. This is a perfectly fine method for a lightweight rover as long as the net effect of steering isn't to sink the rover into the soil.

To make sure the rover could move and steer on the Moon without embedding, ISRO developed a big sandbox filled with crushed anorthosite to test rover mobility in. When NASA does this with Mars rovers, they build full-size mobility system mockups with tiny bodies so the whole vehicle weighs on Earth what the real rover weighs on Mars, where gravity is a third of Earth's. But that wouldn't work for the already-small Chandrayaan-2 rover trying to simulate lunar gravity at a sixth of Earth's. So ISRO developed a different solution that I just love: attaching a giant helium-filled balloon to a duplicate test rover to counterbalance 5/6 of its weight. These tests succeeded, evidently.

[Mobility testing of the Chandrayaan-2 rover]
Mobility testing of the Chandrayaan-2 rover ISRO employs a balloon to counteract 5/6 of the weight of a duplicate of the Chandrayaan-2 rover in order to test its mobility on simulated lunar soil at lunar gravity. From M. Annadurai et al. presentation to the 10th IAA Symposium on the Future of Space Exploration, Torino, Italy, 27-29 June, 2017.

Because of its small size, the rover instrumentation is fairly limited, much like Sojourner's was. It has two navigation cameras for stereo path planning and an inclinometer for safety (drives will stop if the rover's inclination or motor current gets too high). It has no rear-facing cameras. It will use a small radio antenna for communication with the lander, which will relay rover data to Earth. The radio antenna is atop its vertically-mounted solar panel. Its solar panel is mounted vertically because of the near-polar landing site. That suggests the rover will need to turn in place after traverses to align the panel for good power production.

The rover is equipped with two science instruments for elemental composition, both of which point downward, beneath the rover: a LASER-INDUCED BREAKDOWN SPECTROSCOPE (LIBS) and an ALPHA PARTICLE X-RAY SPECTROMETER. In general, LIBS will get you lower-mass elements and APXS will get you higher-mass elements, with substantial overlap between them. LIBS is faster, APXS more sensitive to trace elements if you can give it long enough integration time. Perhaps they will be using LIBS along traverses, and APXS at stops.

Interestingly, a paper I read about the LIBS instrument suggested it was designed for a one-year primary mission. Officially, the lander mission has an expected lifetime of 14 days, but maybe there is hope that it will survive a lunar night to do science on a second lunar day. That would be awesome. But any successful landing at all would be an enormous accomplishment for India; I don't want to get greedy.

Looking Ahead

Originally, Chandrayaan-2 was supposed to be a collaboration with the Russian space agency, but budget problems made Russia drop out, and India decided to go it alone. If Chandrayaan-2 succeeds, India's next step will be lunar sample return. They'd be following exactly the same path China has at the Moon, going quickly from a successful orbiter, to a lander/rover, to autonomous sample return. Unlike China, however, India is using international collaboration to increase its chances for success; Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe signed an agreement a couple of weeks ago to collaborate on a future joint lunar sample return mission.

A lot of people are trying to make the separate Chinese and Japanese/Indian lunar efforts into a race. To be sure, there is some national pride riding on successes in space, and reaching milestones first. But races have only one winner. We all win when more organizations launch scientific missions into space. All of these countries have shared the data they gathered during past missions with scientists and the public. India's mission landing near the south pole, and China's landing on farside, will only enhance global understanding of the Moon, regardless of who gets there first. India or China may yet be defeated by physics -- deep-space exploration is challenging -- but they won't be defeated by each other's success.

Good luck, saubhaagy to ISRO and India on the upcoming launch of Chandrayaan-2!

References

_Many thanks to Sriram Bhiravarasu for providing me some papers I used as sources for this article._

Annadurai M (2017) "Future Exploration Missions of ISRO" presentation to the 60th session of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Exploration of Outer Space, 7-16 June 2017, Vienna, Austria

Annadurai M et al (2017) "Chandrayaan-2 lunar orbiter & lander mission" abstract presented to the 10th IAA Symposium on the Future of Space Exploration: Towards the Moon Village and Beyond, 27-29 June 2017, Torino, Italy

Further reading

See everything I've written or edited about Chandrayaan-2 here.

An enthusiast website about Chandrayaan-2 maintained by Vijainder K Thakur is full of useful information, most of it with sources, though sources aren't linked.

Also useful to follow are Chandrayaan-2 threads at nasaspaceflight.com and unmannedspaceflight.com, and the ISRO news thread at defenceforumindia.com.

There are some interesting photos of rover hardware components by journalist Pallava Bagla at Getty Images.

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question: Describe the process of launching Chandrayaan-2 into orbit.

answer:
The Chandrayaan-2, which includes an orbiter, lander, and a small rover is India's first attempt at a soft landing on the moon. Chandrayaan-2 is scheduled to launch from ISRO's Sriharikota launch center using a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark 2 (GSLV Mk2).
The GSLV will launch Chandrayaan-2 into an elliptical Earth parking orbit, which can take days or weeks. This process will continue until a lunar orbit insertion places Chandrayaan-2 into an elliptical orbit. Once Chandrayann-2 is in orbit ar the Moon, the landing process can begin. While the orbiter does not care for the moon phase, the lander and rover need a bit of sunlight for power so the timing of the launch is crucial. The landing will be autonomous with the lander separating from the orbiter, changing its orbit around the Moon to one. At an altitude of 7 kilometers, the lander will take photos of the lunar surface and determine which trajectory is necessary to bring it to its desired landing site. It will then use a hazard sensor to map the lunar surface for potential hazards while it scans for a safe location to touch down. Once the lander safely lands and cuts its engines, the rover will roll out to complete its mission.

question: Summarize the principles behind how the Chandrayaan-2 lander works.

answer: The lander looks like a truncated pyramid that is built around a cylinder that is the propellant tank. Its propulsion system uses four engines that provide around 800 newtons of thrust and eight rockets of 50 newtons each. The lander communicates to Earth using a dual-gimbal, S-band radio antenna. The lander also has many cameras in its hazard detection system to determine a safe landing site. This hazard detection system contains a microwave and laser velocimeter.

question: Why does the lander use an autonomous landing procedure?


text:
What to do if your dog starts talking to you.
	Step one: If he/she is speaking english you still have time to dial a number, and get him/her fixed. If he/she starts speaking german it’s too late. You have to run; then call the number eight-one-one.
	Step two: Once you’ve called the number you’ll be picked up in a blue van with racing stripes where you’ll get further instructions.
	Step three: Follow said instructions.
	Now I know what you’re thinking, “Oh Lane, why would my dog be talking?” My name is Lane by the way, and I don’t like the tone you used to ask that question.  Despite your attitude I’ll answer your question because it’s my job to make sure that you don’t die. Now, I’m not a member of the government or anything like that, but my brother-in-law is. I don’t like him very much, my sister could’ve done better. Anyways, the dog thing, long story actually. If I explain it to you from where I am now it won’t make much sense; actually the whole thing doesn’t make sense, but if I explain it from where I am now it’ll make less sense. So, let’s start from the very beginning.
	It was Friday the thirteenth (I’m not saying the events that will occur have anything to do with the day, but it’s still a freaky coincidence). I was watching Dexter in my ergonomically correct office chair. If you haven’t seen the show here’s the basic rundown: A man works for the forensics unit of the Miami Police Department and he kills serial killers. It’s really good, you should watch it. As I’m in the middle of the twist of the first season my roommate, Charles,  burst in my room wearing headgear from ancient roman times. He didn’t even have to speak because I knew exactly what he was going to say.
	“You didn’t!?” I shouted with both fury and aggravation. Wait, aren’t those two kinda the same thing? I don’t think so; well, maybe. I’ll check later.
	He didn’t even answer, he just stared at me with a, ‘Oops, I did it again’ look. You know the one. It’s that look the Olsen twins used on “Full House” whenever their character Michelle did something wrong. I really hate that show. Anyways, he looked at me with that smile and I knew that he used the time machine again. By the way we have a time machine, that’s a totally different story though. I burst out of my chair intending to punch him, but he stopped me.
	“Dude just calm down!” Charles said while holding his arms up in self defense.
	“We discussed that we wouldn’t use the time machine ever again! It’s getting too dangerous!”
	“I couldn’t help it! It was calling my name!”
	“Time machines don’t talk, Charles!”
	“I’m sorry!” Charles began to wale and cry very obnoxiously so I punched him in the thorax. That always shuts him up.
	Before I explain any further I should tell you about how this even came about. You see, about a week earlier Charles and I had returned from inventing the high five before Dusty Baker and Glenn Burke, we noticed something strange about our basement. Nothing about the placement of objects, all of our guns seemed to be in their usual spots and our extensive collection of L. Ron Hubbard books had remained untouched, but there was some dude standing in the corner of the basement. He didn’t say anything, he just stood there; like a silent, deadly, poltergeist.
	He wasn’t wearing a suit or anything like that, he was wearing a hawaiian shirt with cargo pants and sandals. He appeared to have predominately caucasian ancestry with suspected asian ancestry as well. He was a shady looking dude. What made him especially shady was the AK-47 he was holding in his hands; I was focusing more on the awful shirt he was wearing. There was about thirty seconds of silence until the gun wielding stranger finally spoke.
	“You Lane and Charles?” He apparently had a british accent. That’s something neither me nor Charles expected.
	“Uh, yeah,” Charles answered hesitantly. The stranger’s fingers tightened around the gun.
	“I’m gonna need you to come with me,” he said this very intimidatingly. Charles and I shook with fear, or maybe we were shaking because it was winter in Wisconsin and our basement didn’t have heating. So, we agreed that if his car was heated that we’d go with him.
	The man’s name was Gerald, and his vehicle was a blue van with racing stripes. The interior was not as cool as the exterior. There weren’t any back seats, just plastic crates with pillows on them. The pillows didn’t come in much handy every time we went over a speed bump. There was also no radio, so we couldn’t even jam to some Blue Oyster Cult or Beethoven on this awkward ride. It also wreaked of an awful odor. It was an indescribable smell; I just can’t put into words how bad it smelt in that car, but the smell was probably coming from the rotting corpse that was in the car. We didn’t see the corpse itself, just a bunch of garbage bags. We wouldn’t have guessed that a chopped up corpse was in those bags unless Gerald told us.
	Gerald, for a man who made Charles and I go on a joyride with him without giving us a reason, was very polite and honest, but he wouldn’t tell us who was in the bags. He merely said it was someone familiar. Gerald was also very cryptic. He was weird like that.
	We drove for about thirty more minutes before we pulled into an abandoned warehouse with about a dozen other blue vans with racing stripes on them.
	“Get out,” Gerald said calmly. Like I said, he was polite.
	Charles and I got out of the van where we were then attacked and had potato sacks put over our heads. Now, I’m not completey sure about this, but I think these guys gave me and Charles some sort of shot to get us to stop struggling. I say this because for a few minutes I felt like I was flying on a cloud. Not one of those usual clouds you fly on, this one was really nice. It was like flying on cotton candy through a sky where the air I breathed tasted like chocolate. However the ride didn’t last long because whatever Charles and I were injected with wore off and I was greeted with a punch to my face.
	The sack was still on my head so I couldn’t see where I was, but I assumed it was in the same warehouse Gerald pulled his van into because Charles wouldn’t stop screaming and thus echoes ensued.
	“Please stop punching my face! It’s very sensitive when blunt objects hit it!” Surprisingly, the men didn’t listen to his request. The sacks were eventually removed from our heads. We were greeted by three men who, by their scrawniness, made Charles and I feel really out of shape that men who looked like that could hurt us so badly. I also noticed that they were wearing the exact same thing that Gerald was wearing. Same hawaiian shirt, sandals, and cargo pants.
	“Do you know who we are?” The man in the middle said. The men never gave us their names, so I’m just gonna call them Larry, Curly, and Tom Cruise.
	“No, why would we know that?” Charles asked.
	“Because you might’ve seen us when you visited King Tut last week,” responded Tom, “or when you proved Joseph Smith wrong a year ago, or when you invented the high five an hour ago.”
	Woah, these guys were good. I was surprised that he knew of mine and Charles’ time adventures. We were the only people in the world with a time machine. Or at least, in our time. Charles had a look on his face that was all too familiar to me. It was the look that said, “I’ll get us out of here, just let me go over every Doctor Who episode I’ve ever seen and see if the Doctor has been in a similar situation.” As his face of clever thinking deteriorated to that of a distressed puppy I knew we were in trouble.
	“We’ve been watching you for quite some time now,” Curly said out of no where. He didn’t really look like someone who’d talk, “and we don’t appreciate what you’ve been doing.”
	“What’re you talking about?” I asked.
	“You’ve been unknowingly destroying Earth.” Larry responded.
	Curly then made a hologram of Earth appear on some sort of device that wasn’t supposed to be around until 2050. Charles and I took some future vacations as well. As we looked at our amazing planet several red dots began to appear all over it, mostly in North America and Europe.
	“These are all the spots where the aliens have already invaded!” Curly shouted causing me and Charles to jump a little bit.
	I’ll spare you the one hour speech that was given to Charles and I, but I will tell you what you need to know: Apparently Charles and I had used our time machine so much that it got the attention of shapeshifting extra-terrestrials due to some signal it was giving off. Since time machines weren’t supposed to be around until five years from now when we’d already made peace with a different species of aliens made mine and Charles’ time machine very suspicious. Like I said, how we got that time machine was a different story altogether. Apparently the species that we were supposed to make peace with eliminated the species that was currently inhabiting Earth. Now you see the dilemma, don’t you? Oh yeah, it turns out that Gerald, Larry, Curly, and Tom Cruise were sent from the future to stop us from causing the aliens to invade. They obviously didn’t do a good job. Also, they were wearing the same things because their future space uniforms adapted to the time period they were in. Now I remember why I don’t write, I forget to put important plot points in.
	They left it up to me and Charles to not use the time machine anymore; because if we did the aliens, species name: Dorothrats, would get a lock on signal and use the time machine for evil. Why they left it up to us I have no idea, we would probably do a worse job than them. They should’ve just taken it away from us. They also said we were a part of their Alliance or whatever, so now we had to help people with whatever kind of alien problems they had. Apparently there had been a lot of calls like that. People calling about their dog talking. The Alliance was always listening in on phone calls so they could show up on the scene before things got out of hand.
	Apparently, Dorothrats invade by taking the shape of dogs, learning how earthlings interact and live, and then they transform into humans. This wasn’t a fast process though; the educating stage could take weeks or months. And the transformation, that’s what the beginning of my story was about. Dorothrats first learn how to speak our language, which is english if you didn’t know, this is the early stage in the transformation process, so you can still get him/her fixed if you hear a strange whisper in the middle of the night. By fixed I mean beaten to death. It’s okay, they’re not really dogs, they’re aliens so it’s not animal cruelty. However, once they learn another language, (no one knows how they do it, but they do), then it’s too late for you. Your dog will then turn into your shape, kill you, and begin living your life. Huh, I guess I didn’t shorten that speech at all.
	Anyway, Gerald dropped Charles and I back off at our house and said to be ready for a call. We never would be. And those are the events leading up to Charles and the roman headgear.
	“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!” I shouted.
	“I’m sorry man! What’s the worst that could actually happen?”
	Before I could answer my phone rang. It was Gerald. How did he get my number? I don’t remember him asking for it. Oh yeah, they were time travelers. I answered it, all he said was, “You really messed up. Go to 1233 3rd avenue, your first assignment is there.” The call ended. I gave Charles a dead stare, but I couldn’t focus on his mistake. We had an assignment.

title: The Time Machine (not the classic story by H.G. Wells, this is an entirely different happening of events altogether. Sorry for any confusion.) Part 1

question: Summarize what the text says about dogs.

answer: The narrator warns his readers to beware if their dog begins to speak, and gives instructions for what to do if it does. There is an alien species that is invading the planet taking on dog forms and then learning human language and studying human lives. Once the alien learns enough, it can take human form and replace the dog's owner. The reader can eliminate the alien if it catches the dog before it learns more than one language but after that, it's too late and the human will need to flee.

question: Summarize what the text says about women.


text:
**Disclaimer**: English is missing a widely accepted gender neutral pronoun. As no ones gender is relevant in this story, I have chosen to use the "Jayce's Gender-Neutral Pronouns". Also, any comments on the story are greatly appreciated.

*

"Is it ready?"

"Not quite. We are performing the last tests now."

They were walking down the hallway leading to the control room. Shel breathed heavily, and let out a sigh.

"Nervous?", asked Lin.

"No kidding."

Lin smiled and snickered.

"This is the most fail-safe experiment ever made!"

"Yes, you keep saying that, and I understand why, but it does not help me to calm my nerves."

"Well, it will definitely feel better when you have gone through...", Lin paused briefly and looked at Shel, "... the *last* stage.", and smiled again.

"Ha-ha, real funny. But, yeah, I hope so too."

Lin swiped the access card, and the doors slid open, revealing the massive control room. The ceiling, or rather the part of the outer hull of the capsule that made up the ceiling of the control room, was a large window out into open space. It was difficult, but you could just spot the twin capsule on the other side, if you knew where to look.

Shel looked up and saw the capsule, jeir heart jump started and jee felt a bit dizzy. Lin made an awkward little wave and said "I'll be right back.". Shel tried to calm jemself down by focusing on jeir breathing. Jee walked over to the cooler and had some water.

Lin came back.

"There we have it. It is all set now. Want to join me?"

"Ok, lets go."

Lin and Shel walked through the rows an columns of techs lying down at their terminal stations. They reached their own terminals and slid down. Before them now, only space and the other capsule. Lin opened up the line to the other capsule.

"Hi Lin."

"Hi Vir.", Lin responded. "So we are ready to go?"

The terminal showed Vir's image in front of both Lin's and Shel's terminal stations.

"Yes indeed."

"Then here we go.", said Lin and entered the initiation command into the terminal. "There you go."

"Thank you,", Vir replied, "and there you are.", as jee sent over the confirmation.

Far up in the room in front of them a timer emerged, aligned to be slightly below the visual of each tech in the room. The countdown started with a calm beep. People in the room hushed their voices and the few of them still standing around went to their terminals.

Shel felt more nervous than before, jee was feeling very dizzy now, even when lying down. Jee looked at the timer and completely lost control over jeir breathing. Jeir heart beating stronger at every tick of the countdown. Jee felt jeir vision failing jem, but as the timer hit zero it was obvious that that was not what jee was experiencing.

Slightly below the other capsule the background stars started moving outwards forming a circle. At the same time, the stars at the top of Shel's vision started moving down the huge window, leaving a complete darkness behind.

The timer hit zero, reset and started a new count down with the same calm beep.

"Everything looks good.", said Lin.

Vir nodded before them.

They had all seen this before. Many, many times. It was still an amazing spectacle. The circle under the twin capsule had now stopped expanding and the darkness above Shel and Lin had also stopped, and it covered about a third of the window.

As the timer got closer to zero, Shel unconsciously stopped breathing and stopped blinking. Jee stared at the timer. The room completely silent now. Everyone in the room looking at the timer.

The timer hit zero. If Shel would have looked over at Vir's image, still present in front of jem, jee would see that Vir, just as jem, had stopped breathing, with jeir mouth slightly open.

Shel realised that jee was still looking at the timer, frozen at zero. Jee blinked, and looked over at the black circle underneath the twin capsule.

Vir started leaning upward from jeirs lying position and said "I... I see the pod."

Still not a sound in the room. Vir sat up completely.

"Ok, ok. Yes. Ok.", Vir said and looked around jemself. Shel followed Vir's movement as jee got out of jeir terminal station and went out of vision.

Lin appeared in front of Shel, patted jeir shoulder and then waved towards jemself as jee said "Come on, lets go.". Shel sat up and looked at Lin as jee excitedly hurried away down the rows. Shel got out and walked after.

Lin opened the door at the head-side of the room with jeirs access card and walked through. They stood next to each other, looking at the wall, as the wall opened up and displayed Vir and the mirror image of the room that Shel and Lin themselves were standing in. And next to Vir...

"Well, here jee is... I mean... *you* are." said Vir, looking at Shel. Vir looked anxious, but tried to smile.

Shel knew exactly how it worked, and what jee was about to do. Jee had been a part of the team working on the designs of this whole experiment.

Recent technological achievements in quantum gravity had made it possible to stimulate space-time. The experiment was designed to create a local Gödel-like space-time in between the two capsules. In Shel's time-line, jee would enter a pod, travel into the darkness above their capsule and instantly emerge from the darkness below the twin capsule. The thing was, in anyone else's time-line, jee would *first* arrive at the twin capsule, *then* enter the into the void. Jee would travel back in time! The first stage of the experiment was complete, and at the same time the last stage of Shel's travel was complete -- Shel had arrived.

But now as jee saw jemself, standing there, jee could not believe it. It was not calming jeir down, it made it worse. The only thought rushing through jeir mind was "This cannot be. This must be impossible. This is absolutely absurd!"

Shel, the recently arrived Shel, said the control phrase, a phrase that was a part of the experiment. Shel had earlier constructed a long phrase according to a set of rules, to make it unique. It had not been generated by any machine, nor ever written down.

Shel started shaking jeir head as jee heard the phrase, completely stunned and incapable of uttering a single word. Lin, who have had a very excited expression on jeir face ever since the screen showed Vir and Shel together, looked over at Shel, went closer, took jeir by the shoulders and tried to get eye contact with jeir.

"Was that it? Was that the control phrase? Look at me. Was that the correct control phrase?", Lin asked, shaking Shel gently.

Shel managed to stop staring at the screen, and the other Shel, looked at Lin and said, "Ye... Yes. That was it.", still shaking jeir head, while a tear ran down jeir cheek from having jeir eyes opened for too long.

Lin made a small skip of joy, and let out a victorious "Yes!".

"Ok, we must go now. We must...", Lin was to excited to be thinking straight, "Ok. Look...", Lin stopped briefly and looked over at the screen, "Ok. Bye. See ya'. Ok. Yeah. Bye.", waved jeir hand quickly at the screen and took Shel by the arm. The screen went off.

"Ok, look, we must go now. Ok?", Lin said as jee started dragging Shel to the pod, mounted in the launch bay in the back of the room.

As Lin started strapping Shel in, who still were in considerable shock, jee said "I told you! It is the most fail-safe experiment ever! You saw... you saw... *you!* You saw *yourself*! It *worked*!"

Lin was done, Shel was strapped in. Lin held Shel by the arms, "Are you ok? You have to go now."

Shel had just been staring out in to the empty room. Jee managed to fix jeir eyes on Lin, nodded slightly.

"Yes. Yes, I'm... I'm ok."

Lin waved good bye, closed the door to the pod and ran out to the control room again. The timer had started a third time, a countdown for when Shel, in jeir pod, would have to enter the hole above their capsule.

In the control room, everyone was now standing up next to their terminal stations, looking at the foot-side wall that was now displaying Vir in the control room of the other capsule, and next to jem, Shel.

People were jumping and waving at the screen. Lin walked as quickly as jee could to jeir terminal and jumped down. Vir and Shel was also visible in front of jeir terminal station.

"Only the last stage remaining.", Lin declared to Vir.

Vir just nodded, with a smile on jeir face, jee was much calmer now.

The pod was launched, entered the darkness, and the timer reached zero. People started to cheer loudly as the stars started going back to their original position.

"Experiment complete. We have just demonstrated time travel with a human being!", Lin announced proudly into the control room over the PA system, and the cheering escalated.

In the foot-side of the room, one person was looking up at where the black sphere had just vanished. Jee stumbled back a step and then quickly jumped into jeir terminal station. Jee yelled out of the terminal station, "The pod is still there!", jumped up from the terminal and yelled again, "The pod is still there!".

It was hard to hear jem from all of the cheering people around, but the whole room went silent in a matter of a few seconds. Some looking up, out of the window, but most of the people in the room had no idea of what just happened. Everyone were confused as to why the cheering died.

Lin looked around the room with a puzzled look on jeir face. Then jee heard the person yelling.

"What did you say?", Lin yelled back.

"The pod is still there!"

"No... no, that is...," Lin started yelling but lowered jeir voice, "that is impossible", jee told jemself as jee jumped down into jeirown terminal station. To jeir surprise, the terminal said that, indeed, the pod was still there.

Lin initiated the pod retrieval from the terminal and ran back to the room at the head-side of the control room from which the pod was launched.

The people in the control room were talking to each other, wondering what this would mean. What had happened?

Lin comes back out of the room, with quick and determined steps jee walked towards the foot-end, to the wall showing Vir and Shel. The anger showing in Lin's face was way beyond obvious. Lin raises jeir arm, points at Shel on the big screen, and screamed:

"Shel lies dead in the pod! Who are you!?"

title: [SF] Who are you?!

question: Describe the experiment the researchers were conducting in the station.

answer: In recent technological achievements in quantum gravity, it was made possible to stimulate space-time. An experiment described as "the most fail-safe experiment ever made" was designed to allow time travel between two capsules. The human would enter the darkness through a pod and instantly emerge from the darkness below the capsule.


text:
I chose to write this story because the author of World War Z states that zombies can survive underwater for a long time, but doesn't say anything about what was done to clear them up. Yes, there are references to other famous books/movies in here too, I hope you will enjoy it :)

Deep Sea

One part of the Z war, or World War Z, as some like to call it, that rarely gets mentioned in history books is the cleanup of the seas. When the war was long won on land and humanity was mopping up the last remnants of zombified human remains, a silent war was still raging under the seas, a war that few ever heard of and whose soldiers are forgotten, relegated to the annals as "cleanup crews". Giorgio Pellizzari led one of these crews, the Poseidon #8, in charge of "disposal, removal and elimination of human remains". Now retired, the imposing Italian man still sports a fierce white beard that contours his sun-baked face. His blue eyes, specks in the midst of gnarled rough skin have a lively, unbowed look about them.

"The first thing you have to understand about our work is that the sea covers 71% of the planet, and with man being a land animal and all, it is naturally difficult to make any sort of impact on such an immense, untamed body. Think of navies in the past, of the Spanish Armada in the 16th century, not all of the king's cannon could do a thing to prevent the sea from taking them all.”

“ I think it was the first prerogative of our job, even before the heathen ones, we respected the sea itself. Whenever we submerged we were completely at it's mercy."

Sitting in his living room, by a warm fireplace, it's hard to believe that this man has come from the coldest hell on earth. Following his exploits in the Atlantic, Pellizzari became somewhat of a legend in the diving community and is credited with having paved the way for the reclaiming of the seas. With the solid education he received while in the COMSUBIN  (Italian Navy's special forces) and his technical know-how of diving equipment, Pellizzari was the ideal choice to lead the "Poseidons", as they came to be known. Something about the naval decor of the room, or maybe the set of crossed iron spears that loom over the fireplace hint that this man was something more than a mere cleanup guy. He speaks with a deep voice, accented by his Tuscan origins.

"Of course, a few divers could do little against the millions and millions of heathen ones that found themselves at the bottom of the sea. If even we fought every day for the rest of our lives we would never be able to finish off all of them, that's why we relied on the tugboats, before the divers...The tugboats were regular fishing vessels, at first we used the modern diesel-powered ones, but you see, today diesel is a luxury, and the little we got was used to operate the machinery. I've got to say, the sea offers all the propulsion you need, for free. We took to converting them to sail, or we found what sail ships we could outright.”

“Three or four tugboats would lower their nets into the ocean, preferably where the seabed was flat and sandy and start dredging the seabed, back and forth, scooping up all the heathen ones they could. When the nets were well full, they would be hoisted up by a mechanical crane and lowered directly into the firebreather, a barge with a large rectangular incinerator on top. The abominations, with their disgusting bloated bodies would tumble down into to the fire and their ashes would be thrown to the sea. We would scrub the nets and repeat, over and over until the last monster was fished out of the water. When the nets would stop bringing them up, we would send a small detachment of divers to scout the area and pick off any lucky survivors with their spears.”

“Now you will say, well, that's pretty easy! And I would say you are right! It was a joy to see those horrible creatures get consumed by the tonnage, my boys even drew a large dragon on the side of the firebreather and when we let them burn they would shout, holler and cheer."

The image of a fiery barge incinerating zombies is sure spectacular, yet I feel the urge to enquire as to the actual fighting the divers had to do. Giorgio nods, he knows what I'm about to ask.

"The thing is, not all of the seabed is flat, or sand. In fact, most areas are full of rocks, wrecks and all sorts of deathtraps for a net. Those were quite precious commodities so we avoided wasting them and only lowered them when we were sure they wouldn't snag onto anything. When they couldn't lower the nets, that's when we were truly called upon, that's when they asked to deploy us, the Poseidons."

Before trying to understand the way in which zombies were fought underwater, it is important to ascertain how they interacted with the ocean's floors. Although zombies are immune to the lack of air,  their sense of smell and hearing are mostly rendered useless at the bottom of the ocean. While on earth a Z could hear a man from half a mile away, underwater they were nothing more than bloated mobile masses, walking endlessly in a slow motion, sappy fever dream. Although this made them easier to kill, it is also a testament to their resilience, a Z could walk alone for years under the sea, marine life completely avoided them, even sharks dare not approach them.

A standard Poseidon formation as it came to be known after the war quickly became the accepted method of effectively fighting Z under the water. The formation was composed of "Heavy" and "Light" units, acting in unison to bring down the threat. The first ones to submerge would be the "heavies". These were deep sea divers completely clad in a massive bronze and aluminum diving suit with a large copper helmet enveloping their head. On each side of the helmet each heavy had a "Ulixes" torch, a model that could light up even the most deep recess of the abyss.Their weaponry consisted of a large bronze shield and an inox iron spear, resembling that of an Ancient Greek hoplite or a Roman legionnaire. For backup, every heavy was armed with a 10 inch diving knife, one edge serrated to cut through netting and obstacles, or on occasion Z himself. While the heavy was slow, he could stay submerged for up to a day thanks to his carbon-scrubbing rebreather and was almost completely immune to bites, scratches and whatever the Z's could throw at them. After having made contact with the seabed, the heavies would gather into serrated ranks, their shields held in front of them and the spears poking out, forming an impenetrable phalanx. Following the heavies, the "light" units would submerge. Unlike their invulnerable brethren, the light divers only wore a neoprene diving wetsuit, which depending on the climate could be switched out for a hermetic one. Most "lights" sported a handheld torch, which they used to find Z and signal the heavies, together with a short spear or an axe. They had GAV inflatable jackets and lead-weighed belts to enable them to sink or float at will. Under most circumstances they looked exactly like a modern scuba diver, complete with fins, air tanks and diving torches. The light divers traded armor for mobility and were therefore the skirmishes of the formation, fanning out and attacking Z at will, harassing him and retreating, luring him toward the grinder of the waiting heavies. Giorgio was one of them.

"Once the lights would gather enough Z's they would start luring them towards us". He explains;

“In an ideal scenario we would have a good visibility and we could see them approaching and prepare our phalanx to face them. Still, as I've already told you, the sea makes her own rules to the games that people play. One moment we would have visibility as clear as day, the other a current of plankton would envelop us, making them impossible to see even if they were an inch from our nose. What guided us was mostly the torches of the light ones. They would signal to us where the heathen ones were and from where they would be approaching. It was important to have our phalanx always facing them because if the demons found our unshielded side it could often spell disaster. Many men I lost to an unseen bastard who crawled into our side. If the lights did their job good though, that often wouldn't be the case and we could face all of the fiends upfront...

That's when the fighting began.

The lights would scatter, either floating up and beginning their ascent or retreating behind our ranks, most of the time they would float above us, illuminating the zombies from above with their torches. Then the wall of dead would be upon us. It felt like a train smashing head on against our shields, we would hold fast, our lead-laced boots digging into the ground, our shield protecting us from their rotten teeth. The funny thing is, this was nothing like the combat you see on land, it was all in slow motion, slow but continuous, fluid movements both ours and Z's. It was a deadly struggle and yet there were no screams, no gunfire it was silent as night down there. Once Z had been stopped in his tracks we would raise our shields and start stabbing at their head with our long spears, killing them rank after rank putting them down into the seabed where they're supposed to be. What our spears couldn't finish we did with our knives, our boots or even our bare hands. Once I saw Morotz, one of my biggest lads, crush the head of a Z in his ironclad fist."

Although the Poseidons were unrivaled fighting machines, losing only 15 of their 300-strong unit in the whole war, operating at depths of up to 2000 meters under the sea demanded quite a complicated logistics system to keep them alive at that depth and to make their fighting force effective. That's something I ask Giorgio, who indeed seems to be well-versed on the subject.

"Due to the slow nature of the fighting that took place down there, it often took days to clear an area of heathens, which is why we set up "camp" a few hundred meters under the surface. Now "camp", is nothing as you imagine it. It's intended as a pressurized hyperbaric chamber, suspended by cable to one of our tugboats. When the fighting was over for the day, we would all ascend to "camp" where we could decompress, lose the nitrogen in our system and make preparations for the following day."

Decompression is necessary to every diver, from the deep sea heavies to a recreational scuba. When a person is submerged for a certain amount of time little bubbles of nitrogen start forming in the bloodstream and if one was to emerge suddenly, these would expand owing to the reduced pressure and obstruct vessels and veins, risking to kill the person. An experienced diver knows this sickness very well.

"We took decompression religiously. I would have rather left one of my guys behind and have one less heavy than risk a decompression sickness on my hands. It's a horrible way to go and it would spell the end of whatever operation we were conducting, not to mention kill the morale of my guys. Sometimes, when an operation was over we had to decompress for days, these were pretty boring and most of us stashed all manners of books and magazines in the hold. It was a down time to our work, we trained to kill but all we had to kill in there was time. It did give me time to think however, as it's in here that I thought up the phalanx, the light and heavies and all that was our fighting doctrine, every time I emerged in the chamber I had ample time to learn from the mistakes we made and perfect our tactics. In the end, a ship is only as good as it's crew and I could use this time to deal with my men on a personal level. I could see who was in a good mood, who wasn't and why, I tried my best to keep their morale high, that's when they fought best."

I now move on to another topic. I feel like I've explored the past enough and I'm sure it must have been quite taxing for Pellizzari. I ask him about the future and what he sees of it. Considering the Poseidons have now been disbanded, replaced by professional Navy units.

 "I was assigned mostly ex Navy guys myself, or whatever deep sea divers had survived the Z war, cable repairmen, ship technicians, even the occasional recreational diver, they were all welcome in my crew...Now that our job is mostly done they all moved on to other pursuits, there are many damaged oil rigs out there, still broken and leaking, cables tore to pieces by the undead.They're wherever mankind needs them to be honestly, and I think it's all for the best. Today I look at my son Giorgio and I hope he grows up in a world that is more than thrusting spears at things. I hope he will develop a culture and master the arts, I hope he will find a job that has nothing to do with the heathen ones at all. Should they rise again, I warn them, while many shall kill them on land, I shall hunt them to the deepest abyss down to the pit of hell itself if necessary.

I’m about to leave, Pellizzari has given me all that I needed and a very significant piece of history, not to mention a lesson learned shall the Z’s decide to infect humanity again. Before I go I have one last question, something unrelated that has always fascinated me. I ask Pellizzari if he’s ever seen things down there, things that no one has ever seen before.

I was half expecting a sardonic remark, something sarcastic or funny, but the man gave me a look that was all the opposite. He seemed to pause on this one and then, almost by surprise gives me an answer I was not expecting.

“Once, and only once. We were at 5,000 meters down and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a hallucination caused by the nitrogen in our blood, but I’m pretty sure we all saw it. It’s eye was as big as one of our shields, tentacles, numerous and thick as a tree, they must have been longer than one of our tugboats. It came close, I think it was just curious. We poked at it with our spears and one of my guys pierced it’s eye. It left in a flurry, an abomination never to be seen again. Never forget, that to this day we know more about the surface of the moon than we do what lies at the bottom of the sea.”

title: Deep Sea (World War Z fanfic, sort of)

question: Describe the "heavy" Poseidon troops.

answer: Heavies were deep sea divers completely clad in massive bronze and aluminum diving suits with large copper helmets. On each side of the helmet was a "Ulixes" torch, a very bright light. Their weaponry consisted of a large bronze shield and an inox iron spear resembling that of a Roman legionnaire. Each heavy was armed with a 10 inch diving knife, one serrated edge to cut through netting and obstacles, of a zombie himself. While a heavy was slow, they could stay under water up to a day and were practically immune from bites, scratches, or whatever zombies could throw at them.

question: Where did the Poseidons fight zombies?

answer: Underwater below the ocean surface.


text:
It was never about the idea of you, it was you. I never wanted a relationship, I told myself there was no way I'd ever consider marriage again before we met. But between all of the little things, the big things, the things others may never even notice...every single part that makes you who you are...I fell for it all.

Within 2 weeks i was in a cloud of feelings I had never remotely felt, I wasn't scared I wanted more..i wanted to feel how you made me feel everyday. The first year or so I had to downplay my feelings and thoughts, you couldn't know how I really felt. I was worried I would scare you away, I had to lie to myself and convince myself I could care less.

I tried to shield and detach myself from developing feelings for liam because he wasn't my child. I tried to protect myself in case something like all of this ever happened by lying myself and not being who I truly wanted to be. It didn't last long, within a few months I found myself thinking about little things he did and thinking of something cute he said to me or did referring to me as mac. I felt like I was a superhero.

Not being able to have children and not having much experience i was always deathly afraid to as much as hold a baby. I had always viewed myself as a broken misfit toy, no real grown self respecting women could ever desire to be with me for an extended period of time. I was someone maybe you would have a little fun with but never even tell your friends about let alone introduce to your parents. Of course I never thought a responsible mother would want me to be a part of raising a child, and even if she did odds are I would find a way for it to all to go terribly, things Kobra usually does.

So when all of these things occurred, and i was someone you could be proud to show off. Or watch your children, help raise them..I was on cloud nine. This was it, she is the one...I am going to get that white picket fence and family I've always secretly desired more than anything.

My life and overall outlook on life has always been unorthodox, but ultimately when I had dreams of what I wanted my future to be..it was living in a little 3 bedroom house with a white picket fence. Nothing too fancy but in a quite neighborhood. Having a loving household and above all finding this vague undefined blur that was my dream girl.

I never really had any types or ideal looks of who I desired, all I knew is I wanted it to be someone that was worthy of all the love I had to give, someone sarcastic enough to confuse me regularly with jokes. Someone who had the drive to become the best version themself, to become successful in life, someone that looked at me and it was like the world stopped and began to revolve around us.

There I was having found this person, who was almost a mythical figure..progressing in our lives together..ups and downs...a myriad of tiny microscopic moments...each being the best moment in my life...over and over. Each day with her is the best day of my life….over and over. I became spoiled almost, I had stockpiled a million glances of your beautiful eyes staring into my soul...small memories that seem like almost nothing in the moment. I became spoiled...i took those for granted. I just assumed we would live happily ever after no matter what. How could we not...time passes..stress builds...money is tight...spirits are low.

The millions of microscopic moments begin to be more spread out...I still don't notice. I'm still in a fog, a feeling of invincibility that I have acquired being with you also doubles as numbness and tunnel vision.

And here we are...would I rather things had went more like the storybook it began as...yes. I have no idea what the rest of our story entails, but one thing I know with all my heart...this isn't the way the story ends. And maybe one day our lives can become the wonderful picturesque illustration I had always dreamed about. I can only hope by reading this you begin to understand that we are meant to write the rest of the pages to this story together…..

To be continued

Love,
Kobra

(She reads reddit religiously so I'm hoping she sees this...I can only hope. I have always enjoyed writing but it has always been lyrics mostly. In no way do I feel I'm a competent writer I just enjoy putting my thoughts and feelings out for people to see. I hope you enjoy! PS kobra was an inside joke between us that I referred to myself in the third person haha)

title: [RO] Incomplete: A Modern Love Story by Kobra

question: What is the theme and content of the composition?

answer: As per the title, the theme is love, specifically, romantic love. The content is in the form of a love letter from a man to a woman who is a single mother.

question: Who is the single mother Kobra is addressing?


text:
The Tide is Turning: The Official Story Is Now The Conspiracy Theory

Paul Craig Roberts

In a few days it will be the 15th anniversary of 9/11, and this November 22 will be the 53rd anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. These two state crimes against democracy destroyed American democracy, accountable government, and the Constitution’s protections of civil liberty.

Years after the damage done by these events, the American people no longer believe the official stories. Neither does the government, but the government will never validate the distrust that Americans now share of the oligarchs’ government by acknowledging the truth.

The official explanation of the assassination of President Kennedy never made any sense. Videos of the assassination contradicted the official story, as did witnesses, and many credible people challenged the government’s story. The CIA was faced with the official explanation becoming unglued and launched its media program stigmatizing doubters as “conspiracy theorists.” See:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/08/31/are-you-a-mind-controlled-cia-stooge-paul-craig-roberts/

The CIA’s psych warfare against the public succeeded at the time and for a number of years during which witnesses had mysterious deaths and the trail grew cold. But by the late 1970s there was so much public skepticism of the official story that the US Congress took the risk of being labeled “conspiracy kooks.” The House Select Committee on Assassinations reopened the inquiry into JFK’s murder. The House Committee concluded that the Warren Commission’s investigation was seriously flawed, that there was more than one person firing at President Kennedy and that there was a conspiracy to assassinate JFK.

The corrupt US Department of Justice (sic) contradicted the House Select Committee’s report. However, the American people believed the Select Committee and not the corrupt Justice (sic) Department, which never tells the truth about anything.

By 2013 polls showed that most Americans are “conspiracy kooks” who do not believe the official government line on JFK’s assassination. So with regard to JFK’s assassination, the “conspiracy theorists” are in the majority. The minority are the Americans who cannot escape their brainwashing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2013/11/20/poll-62-percent-believe-broader-plot-killed-kennedy/

In a few days it will be the 15th anniversary of the alleged al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and we are witnessing the fading protection that the charge of “conspiracy theorist” provides for the official government story. Indeed, the official 9/11 story is collapsing before our eyes.

_Europhysics_, the respected publication of the European physics community, has published an article by scientists who conclude that “the evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that all three [World Trade Center] buildings were destroyed by controlled demolition.” Few American scientists can admit this, because their careers depend on US government and military/security complex research contracts. Independent scientists in the US are a vanishing breed, an endangered species.

The scientists say that in view of their findings, “it is morally imperative” that 9/11 “be the subject of a truly scientific and impartial investigation by responsible authorities.” http://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/pdf/2016/04/epn2016-47-4.pdf

So now we are faced with a peculiar situation. The scientifically ignorant two-bit punk American presstitutes claim to know more than the editors of the journal of the European physics community and the scientists who did the investigation. Don’t you think it farfetched that ignorant, corrupt, and cowardly American journalists who lie for money know more than physicists, chemists, 2,600 high-rise architects and structural engineers who have called on the US Congress to launch a real investigation of 9/11, firefighters and first responders who were on the WTC scene, military and civilian pilots and former high government officials, all of whom are on record challenging the unbelievable and physically impossible official story of 9/11? What kind of a dumbshit moron does a person have to be to believe that the United States government and its media whores know better than the laws of physics?

The ability of the presstitutes to influence Americans seems to be on the decline. The media ganged up on Donald Trump during the Republican primaries, intending to deny Trump the nomination. But the voters ignored the presstitutes. In the current presidential campaign, Hillary is not the run-away winner that the presstitutes are trying to make her. And despite the propaganda ministry, the legs under the official 9/11 story are wobbly, to say the least.

Indeed, the official 9/11 story already has lost credibility with the American public. Last April a Rasmussen Poll found that “Americans doubt they’ve been told all the facts about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and strongly believe the government should come clean.” http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/april_2016/americans_want_government_to_tell_all_about_9_11

A YouGov poll in 2013 found that 50 percent of Americans “have doubts about the government’s account of 9/11,” which shows that the public is far more intelligent and less corrupt than the presstitutes who are paid to lie to the public. This poll also found that as a consequence of the cover-up job performed by the American presstitutes, 46 percent of Americans were not even aware that a third WTC building, Building 7, collapsed on September 11. After viewing films of WTC 7’s collapse, 46 percent saw it as a controlled demolition. By a margin of two to one, poll respondents support a new investigation of Building 7’s collapse. http://rethink911.org/news/new-poll-finds-most-americans-open-to-alternative-911-theories/
By 2016 poll respondents support a new investigation of Building 7’s collapse by a margin of nearly three to one. http://www.ae911truth.org/news/256-news-media-events-yougov-poll-2016.html

So, _in America today “conspiracy kooks” outnumber those who believe the official lies_. As the official lies are themselves conspiracy theories, Americans who disbelieve the official conspiracy theories outnumber Americans who believe official conspiracy theories. The question is: who are the real conspiracy kooks, the majority who disbelieve the official lies or the minority who believe the official lies?

It is curious that the CIA’s psych-op mind-control has broken down in the cases of the JFK assassination and 9/11, but is still effective in more recently orchestrated events, such as San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris, and Nice. Perhaps this is because not enough time has passed for the public to pay attention to the vast difference between the stories and the evidence.

The Internet offers many refutations of the official accounts. With regard to Nice, France, the Nice police officials themselves are having problems with the official story. The French Anti-Terrorist Sub-Directorate in Paris has ordered the public authorities in Nice to delete the video recordings from security cameras of the “Nice Terror Truck Attack.” The Nice authorities refused on the grounds that this would be destruction of criminal evidence. This story has disappeared from the news. I have asked friends in France how this conflict was resolved and have not heard anything. The French like to live life well and faced with the refugees from Washington’s wars, they seem to be focused on living life well while it can be done. If I hear anything, I will pass it on. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/07/22/french-anti-terrorist-police-demand-destruction-of-nice-evidence-paul-craig-roberts/print/

Apparently, the order to delete the video evidence of the “attack” was not sufficient for the French Ministry of the Interior. According to a senior Nice police officer, Sandra Bertin, the Interior Ministry pressured her to falsify her police report on the Nice “truck massacre.” Officer Bertin told the _Journal du Dimanche_ that “he ordered me to put in [the report] the specific positions of the national police which I had not seen on the screen.” http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/07/25/476757/France-nice-police-woman-harassed-CCTV

The Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve is suing the Nice police official for “defamation,” as if it is possible to defame any politician anywhere in the corrupt West. http://www.newsweek.com/french-interior-minister-bernard-cazeneuve-sue-police-officer-over-nice-attack-483595 Moreover, why would a senior Nice official make up a story about being ordered to change a report? It doesn’t make any sense, does it? Clearly, the central government is trying to hide the evidence against the official story. http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/07/25/476757/France-nice-police-woman-harassed-CCTV
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/07/24/french-government-denies-cover-up-nice-police-deployment.html

It seems that the French media is disposing of the Nice police official by branding her a rightwing racist opposed to the current government. http://www.france24.com/en/20160725-french-government-hits-back-nice-security-allegations

Watch this video and ignore the narrator’s four-letter vocabulary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytM-cYfLxzk What you will learn is that all those people you saw running in the presstitute TV reports had no idea why they were running. The presstitutes created the impression that they were running away from the truck. However, as the interviews show, they were running because other people were running, because the police told them “terrorists, run,” and because they heard shots (apparently police firing blanks). Those interviewed reported, “You run with them even though you have no idea what you are running from. You can’t help it, you run with them.” None of those running away ever saw a truck.

According to the foul-mouthed narrator, the film of the people running away was taken prior to the time the truck allegedly mowed down 185 people, killing 85 of them. The narrator appears to be correct if the time stamps on videos are correct. The narrator says the streets needed to be cleared for the crisis actors to put on their show that is used to control our minds about what happened.

I have pointed out that a truck that hit 185 people, killing 85 of them would be covered in blood and that bodies would be splattered all over the street with blood everywhere. Yet, the photos and videos that we are shown show no such evidence. The stopped truck on which police are directing gunfire is as white as snow.

Independently of the vast analysis online of the video evidence of the alleged “Nice attack,” I suspect the Nice “terror attack” for the same reason that the Pentagon attack is suspect. Despite all the contrary evidence against the official stories, the authorities refuse to release the video evidence that, if it shows what the authorities claim, would shut up the skeptics and prove the official story.

_When a government claims it has video evidence that proves its official story but refuses to release it, indeed, demands the destruction of the video evidence, we know for an absolute fact that the video evidence totally contradicts the official story. That is the only possible conclusion._

My readers will write to me asking how the government expects to get away with its faked, and in the case of 9/11 false flag, terror orchestrations? The answer, perhaps, is that just as it took a long time for the JFK assassination and 9/11 lies to catch up with the government, the recent orchestrations will also take some time for a slowly awakening public to catch on. In the meantime the orchestrated events will serve the agendas that they are intended to serve, and by the time that the public sees through the orchestrations, a new situation will be in place with new orchestrations.

Keep in mind that the public thinks it is shown evidence. Newspapers need photos to give a visual dimension to their coverage, and TV needs videos of the events. News organizations are under a time pressure, and they have to use what they are handed or what is at hand. There is no time to scrutinize the visual material or to raise questions about it. Most of the public thinks that the photos and videos shown to them are evidence or would not be shown and accepts the visual evidence without question. In an earlier column I linked to the vast array of Nice photos provided in the UK Daily Mail. The photos show a calm situation. There are a few people lying in the street without any sign of bodily damage or blood and there are covered objects that the public assumes are dead people. But the streets are devoid of the splattered blood and mangled bodies that would be the consequence of a truck hitting 185 people. Similarly, we have been shown very few videos and their origin is unknown except for the one attributed to Richard Gutjahr who was apparently pre-positioned to film inconclusively both the Nice and German “terror attacks.” Online analysis of the videos shows that the videos are not evidence for the storyline. The real question is why the French Interior Minister has prevented the release and demanded destruction of the security camera videos that filmed the entire event, an order that brought the central government in Paris in conflict with the public authorities in Nice. There has been no US media interest whatsoever in this very strange event. It is not a “conspiracy theory” to ask why the public cannot see the video evidence that shows what actually happened.

What agenda is served by the Paris and Nice attacks? This is the question everyone should be asking and the media, if we had one, should be investigating. With the information currently available to me, my answer is this. Of all the peoples of Western Europe, the French are the most independently minded. French independence has taken a number of recent hits from Washington:

The largest French bank was forced to hand over $9 billion to Washington for doing business with a country on Washington’s disapproval list.

Washington forced France to cancel a lucrative ship-building program for Russia, to the detriment of French companies and shipyard workers.

Washington has forced France into a diplomatic conflict with Russia that the French do not want and into a looming military conflict which the French want even less, as the conflict would mean the vaporization of France. As one Russian SS-18 can wipe out three-fourths of the state of New York, how many do you think it would take to wipe France off of the face of the Earth? Not even a handful.

Keep in mind that in 1966 President Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO on the grounds that it was necessary to preserve French independence in world affairs. France did not again submit to Washington’s control until 2009 when Washington-owned Nicolas Sarkozy, put into the French presidency by Washington’s money, followed his orders and rejoined NATO.

The Paris and Nice orchestrated events serve to scare France back into Washington’s arms. Dreams of independence become nightmares when independence leaves the French people at the mercy of both terrorists and Russians. Washington, who owns Sarkozy, who is once again Washington’s candidate for president of France, intends to keep France in NATO.

The article in _Europhysics_ pointing out the impossibility of the official 9/11 story could possibly lead to a rebirth of skepticism among Europeans. Only a skeptical media willing to investigate government storylines can bring a halt to the staged terror events that serve secret agendas.

Keep in mind that the US government has plentiful video evidence of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon but refuses to release the evidence that it says support its story. Similarly, the French federal government has prohibited Nice authorities from releasing the security camera videos of the Nice truck attack and has ordered the video evidence destroyed. How can we believe governments that refuse to show us the hard evidence?

More from Articles & Columns ↓

question: What does the article say about John F. Kennedy?

answer: The author writes about how the official story about Kennedy's assassination was contradicted by witnesses and the videos. The official story was widely believed for a while after Kennedy's death, but from the 1970s onward, the doubters began to outnumber the believers. A committee was formed to investigate, and they found evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, which was contradicted by the Justice Department. However, the current state is that most people think the official story is wrong.

question: What does the article say about US espionage?

answer: The author thinks that the US is either responsible or complicit in many "terror attacks", including the 9/11 World Trade Center attack, the JFK assassination, and the recent terror attacks in France and other countries. The author also posits that Sarkozy, the French President elected in 2009, is backed and controlled by Washington, which is why he put France back into NATO.

question: What does the text say about the di-hydrogen monoxide scare?

question: What does the text say about 9/11?

answer: The author claims that 9/11 wasn't a terror attack. They point out that a lot of emergency responders, engineers, and architects dispute the official story, and they think that the collapse of the buildings was due to controlled explosions. Furthermore, according to the author, the state is suppressing the truth for unknown reasons, but the general populace is wising up to the charade.