USA Zeppelin #1 - Kristiana

This vignette is placed after Kristiana's return voyage North and set in her President's House in the Union capital of Bergen.

Kristiana entered the aptly named Drawing Room and warmly greeted the four engineers from Antarctica. They had already placed the drawings of the first zeppelin in over 300 years on a large table.

A number of notable women in Union history had been named Kristiana, but she knew why that name had been chosen for the prototype.

One engineer started explaining almost immediately. It was clear that she had rehearsed her talk hundreds of times in her mind and likely dozens of time aloud.

"She will have 9,650 cubic meters of gas. 7,120 cubic meters of hydrogen in six cells or bags. The balance being an inert gas shell in nine bags around the hydrogen. The inert gas will be heated directly from a fraction of the waste heat from the generators. Of course, the hydrogen, being surrounded by hot air, will also warm up as well.

This lifting power will support a titanium frame, stubby titanium wings, a gondola with two diesel generators and three maneuverable and two semi-fixed electric motors with propellers.

A variable fraction of the waste heat from the two diesel generators in the gondola will be used to heat the inert gas envelope as much, or as little, as required. So Kristiana will be both a Lighter than Air, the hydrogen, and Hot Air, the inert gas, airship.

Lift will come from both the hydrogen and the warmed inert air. The inert air will be mostly nitrogen and water vapor with a bit of neon and helium. The mix will be slightly lightly than air. Plus, when moving, the two wings can add a bit more lift. This should allow much higher operational ceilings than historical zeppelins.

"How high ?" Kristiana asked ?

We think almost 2,800 meters the lead engineer answered. The limiting factor is how much the various bags can expand as she rises into thinner air.

The unframed open top will allow the inert gas balloons to greatly expand. The hydrogen balloons -or bags- are enclosed inside the inner frame. As they expand they will force air out of the 9th inert gas cell inserted between the hydrogen cells. Plus some of the hydrogen can be consumed as fuel.

At a later date, we may add three balloons outside the frame for additional lift if there is a need for even greater altitude. Two below the midline, lengthwise, at 120 and 240 degrees (with 0 being the top) and a third attached to the top center.

Very tentatively we would make the top bag hydrogen and the bottom two bags heated inert gas. We might be able to reach 4,000 meters, but at a sacrifice in speed due to the increased drag.

This might be needed to cross some mountain ranges, or to pass overhead undetected.

The younger engineer continued: "By putting an oxygen-less gas between the hydrogen and the outside air, we hope to almost eliminate the risk of a hydrogen fire. A flame has difficulty supporting itself if the oxygen in air & hydrogen are mixed with enough inert gas. If the hydrogen gas bag tears, the outer inert gas bag will be torn as well, so the two types of gases will mix with air."

Our inert gas is mainly nitrogen, some water vapor and as much neon and helium as we can mine from the exhaust from our geothermal plants - North and South. The hydrogen also has some water vapor mixed in as well.

If needed, the hydrogen can bled slowly into the air intake of the diesel engines, serving as a range extender. The inert air will be warmed more to counter the reduced hydrogen.

In early tests, the Kristiana will carry almost five tonnes of sand, to drop as needed. The sand will be split between the tips of the two wings, fore and aft and the gondola under the center of gravity. In addition, the two aluminum-air batteries can be dropped from the gondola in an emergency.

The wings add a bit of lift, but their main function is to increase maneuverability. They have slats on the wings to change their shape, as Old World airplanes did. The wings can also be rotated up 22.5 degrees up or down 15 degrees. With an electric propellor on each wing, they can push the Kristiana up or down quickly. And changing the power on one wing versus the other makes for a quicker turn as well.

We have prepared over 100 questions and issues to discuss with the engineers, professors and technical historians of the North on our trip here. So there may be a few, or many, changes to the design you see before you when the Kristiana is built.

After the Kristiana is successfully tested, we hope to build the Union of Scandinavia & Antarctica Zeppelin #2, the Katrina. She should be about three times as large.

The choice of Katrina staggered her, and brought tears to her eyes. She thanked them for that choice.

After an embarrassing pause, the lead engineer took over. "The volume of the inert gas ballon will vary with temperature, while the hydrogen will be more constant in volume. So the titanium frame is built around the hydrogen balloons and connects to a larger frame that cradles most of the lower half of the inert gas balloon. The wings are connected with a wing spar between fore & aft hydrogen balloons with a small inert air balloon between them.

The wings will each have a rearward facing propeller driven by an electric motor mounted inside the wing.

In addition there will be three electric motors with propellers mounted on the bottom of the zeppelin that can each swivel almost 360 degrees. Two will be forward of the gondola, to the port & starboard and the third will be inline with the gondola and aft. The aft third motor & propeller will be a bit larger than the forward motors. The wing mounted motors will be the largest ones.

A skilled pilot may be able to use the three bottom propellers to hover over a spot in a mild wind.

If some of the hydrogen is consumed as fuel, an inert gas balloon between the fore and aft hydrogen balloons will expand, keeping the volume inside the inner frame constant.

The electrical generators will condense the water in their exhaust. The weight of the collected water will help balance the weight if the fuel burned. This water can be dropped as needed as ballast later.

There will be two light weight 1.3 MW bio-diesel generators mounted in the gondola. In normal operation, just one will needed most of the time. In addition, she will have eight aluminum-air batteries that can provide up to 1.5 MW for a few hours.

The crew and passenger part of the gondola will be built as a robust life boat, with an aluminum-air battery inside for radio and a small electric motor & screw. It is also built with crush zones and cushioning for a fall on land.

A previously silent engineer added "We are concerned about winds higher than the top speed of Kristiana. We can drop an anchor to help stabilize her. On land a metal ball full of sand and 550 meters of nylon rope. At sea, an open nylon bag that drags through the water.

How fast will her top speed be ?

Without using her aluminum-air batteries, she should be able to sustain a cruising speed of over 100 kph for several days.

A maximum emergency speed, using her batteries, should be well above 135 kph.

Technical Details Appendix

 Instead of adding too many technical details within the story, I decided to add this appendix.

Heat

Heat and food are two essentials to surviving Antarctic winters. Even after substantial Global Warming, Antarctic winters are still bitterly cold with months without a hint of daylight, especially south of the Palmer Peninsula in places like Nye Copenhagen.

Charcoal - Charcoal is the largest single source of winter heat today. The majority comes from the forests of lightly inhabited Eastern Antarctica, close to the single rail line (and spurs) crossing that side of the continent. Charcoal factories line the route. They process the previous years felled trees and use the wood gas given off from charcoal making to run generators. These generators operate the camp and feed into the electrical supply for the rail line.  The charcoal factories often use their waste heat and wood gas to make bricks with - if a suitable clay supply is nearby.

In the cities, charcoal is used in Central Heat & Power plants. Technology comparable to 1940s & 1950s coal fired generation plants burns the charcoal to create steam - which drives steam turbines and electrical generators. The "waste" heat is captured as hot water and is circulated around the district in insulated pipes for heating and domestic hot water.

Small towns, camps and individual homes burn charcoal directly in energy efficient stoves for heating and cooking during the winter.

A few towns store cured wood and create their own charcoal during the winter, using both the heat from making charcoal, the wood gas produced, as well as the charcoal itself.

Charcoal is expensive and is only used when other heat sources are unavailable.

Wood - Dried wood is also burnt directly in both CHP plants and in stoves and furnaces. However, wood is bulkier and more difficult to transport, handle and store out of the weather. (Few want to haul in ice coated wood when it is -40 C with a strong wind).  Most wood is used in the early winter, often before Last Light.

Hydroelectric - Hydroelectric generation peaks in the early to mid-summer snow melt peak. More water flows at peak melt than there are generators for. Many industrial electrical uses, such as electric arc steel furnaces, electrolytic copper refining to high purity and cement making, are delayed till water is flowing freely. Excess summer electricity is used to warm the earth under homes.

Antarctica has no truly high dams to store large amounts of water through the winter. But they do have some dams as high as 27 meters that can store some water throughout the winter. This water is husbanded for when the wind is not blowing and CHP plants are not producing enough electricity to meet demand.

In a few cases, low temperature heat pumps extract heat from underground or from the water below the floating ice. But electricity is the summer source of heat, with minimal use during the winter.

Wind - Antarctica manufactures a standard wind turbine of 225 kW with a choice of 26.5 or 29 m blades, depending on wind strength. A variety of towers are available. Over 2,000 of these wind turbines are installed around Antarctica. The wind is stronger in the winter and the wind can blow strongly for days - or have days of calm.

Slowpoke Reactors are adapted from a Canadian design by the same name. Beryllium and heavy water moderated reactors designed to just produce low grade heat (150 C or so). VERY useful in Antarctica, especially in the early years when there was limited wind, hydro, geothermal and wood power to provide heat.

These reactors are fueled by spent fuel rods left over from the reactors of the 20th and 21st Century - and lots of thorium.  The thorium breeds to U233 (no plutonium) which keeps the reaction going for centuries - and burns up the plutonium in the spent fuel rods.

These reactors are inherently safe and can operate unattended for extended periods. Replacing old fuel rods with fresh thorium ones drops the power at first, but within a year the radiated heat increases.

After the heavy water is drained, or the pressurized water boils, the chain reaction ceases.

All the Slowpoke reactors were but in little more than a century. None have been built in almost two hundred years.

All of the Slowpoke reactors in the North have been taken out of service - the last within living memory. In the South, they are kept operating as long as possible. Almost half of the Slowpoke reactors installed in Antarctica are still producing some heat.

There is strong popular support in Antarctica to reclaim this technology and build new Slowpoke reactors. The North strongly opposes this.

Given the extended time in the reactor, and the number of slow neutrons, often more than half the thorium (or original spent fuel rod uranium) atoms are split into a random assortment of elements.

{link to Wikipedia article for element distribution of fission products}

After waiting at least 110 years for the short and medium half-life radioactive isotopes to radiate away, the fuel rods are dissolved in an acid mix that reacts with everything but gold, the platinum group metals and krypton gas. After sitting for a few weeks, these valuable elements collect on the bottom of the acid solution.

The acid (and boron, to stop chain reactions) mix is drained off and precipitated as a salt and stored in a corner of a salt mine to let more radioactive decay work. Some of this salt mix has been processed again to recover thorium, to isolate the uranium & residual plutonium and collect some of the zirconium (fuel rod casings), rare earth elements, silver, copper, nickel and tin.  The silver, copper, zirconium and tin are been set aside for use in a future century when the mines of today are exhausted. And the twice processed salt can be processed again to extract other elements if needed.

Slowpoke reactors were usually placed in an accessible pit with heavy shielding around. A multi-story ring was built around the reactor, with a central courtyard over the reactor. The roof over the courtyard could be a geodesic dome, to allow light in during the summer, or an upper story would cover the courtyard with LED lighting the common area. The geodesic dome over the courtyard would be covered with insulation - above and below - during the winter.

Five stories above ground and one or two stories below ground were the most common building rings. Many ring buildings were built with only two service elevators, but more elevators were added in later years. All ring buildings were designed to resist very strong earthquakes and some to withstand tsunamis. And they were almost always built is pairs or triplets a few hundred meters apart, with a connecting covered walkway. In an emergency, people could evacuate from one building to another, and it expanded the social contacts during the long winter.

Most ring buildings were either circles, hexagons or octagons, but there were also many ovals and rounded triangles (giving two sides exposure to the sun, with the third side being devoted to lower priority uses, such as storage, mechanical rooms, stores, etc.)

A building surrounding a central heat source, with a minimized exterior surface for the volume inside, made the most efficient use of energy and imported building materials in the first 80 years of Settlement.

Normally, the side facing the courtyard would have balconies and people would often leave the windows and doors facing the courtyard open (the atrium was usually warmer).

The reactors would radiate heat directly through stainless steel rods into the surrounding earth and a heat exchanger would extract hot water from the heavy water in the reactor for domestic use and some warmth against the outer walls.

This design would not keep everyone in the building warm, but it would keep them from freezing during the long Antarctic winter. 5 C (41 F) was considered quite acceptable in an apartment, office or school during the winter.

During the summer, more of the reactor heat would be diverted to warming the earth around it via the stainless steel rods. During the winter, most of the reactor heat was circulated around the building with hot water pipes.

Obviously, prefabricating such structures in the North and shipping them to the South, took significant resources. However, heat is required to survive Antarctica, especially in the colder late 21st and early to mid 22nd centuries. Only a dozen or so such buildings, with Slowpoke reactors, were shipped south each year, along with a few thousand colonists. But over an 80 year period, Antarctica developed it's own largely self sustaining infrastructure and could build it's own housing to add to what the North shipped south.

Once Antarctica could build most of it's own housing, schools, factories - usually two stories plus a basement - a few dozen larger Slowpokes were shipped South to provide district heating. Hot water would be pumped around a district in insulated pipes.

This made room for many of the Danes that had to flee Denmark as the waters rose. Other Danes went to Greonland, Spitsbergen and the Kola Peninsula - or just went to the settled areas of Scandinavia and integrated into their societies.  Danish was the language of Antarctica, Greonland, Spitsbergen and the small island of Jutland.

Of the 872 Slowpoke reactors in Antarctica, only 388 remain operational. All 388 are producing less heat than originally designed for.  One reactor was covered in a volcanic flow and released some radioactivity into the hot lava. There have been a number of tritium leaks over the centuries, but none of significance.

All such reactors are decommissioned in the North. There is a popular desire in Antarctica to build new ones, but the technology has not been approved, nor are the resources readily available, to build new Slowpoke reactors.

The Antarctic Electrical Grid is at 16.7 Hz (1/3rd of 50 Hz, the old EU standard and the standard of the North), with electrified rail lines connecting the various cities and towns of Western Antarctica and the Palmer Peninsula.

16.7 Hz is the 20th and 21st Century Hz of German, Swiss, Austrian, Swedish and Norwegian electrified railways.  With simple electronics, it is easier to drive an electric locomotive with 16.7 Hz than 50 Hz. And lower Hz carries further with less distortion and less loss.

Most electrical loads, the railroads, resistance heating, lighting (mostly LEDs) and large motors run off 16.7 Hz.  Some small hand tools, small motors and equipment from the North runs on 50 Hz. Resistance heat can, or course, take any Hz electricity. Resistance heating absorbs the excess power as and when it develops.

In the few cities of Antarctica, there is a separate 50 Hz grid for these speciality loads. In smaller towns and camps, 16.7 Hz motors drive 50 Hz generators to generate the needed 50 Hz.

The single rail line through the TransAntarctic Mountains to the port of New Davis on the mouth of the Lambert River operates of 12.5 Hz (1/4th of 50 Hz).  The long distances, over 2,500 km, and hundreds of km between hydroelectric power stations required the lowest possible Hz power that traction motors in locomotives could use.

Most hydroelectric power plants generate at close to 10 kV and most transmission is in the 9.5 kV range, so no transformers are required. However, over a century ago, three higher voltage transmission lines were built.

One such transmission line was from Nye Copenhagen north up the coast to mid-day on the Palmer Peninsula. Another went from Nye Copenhagen up the Minnesota fjord into a partial loop around East Antarctica. And the last one was at 12.5 Hz to support the rail line crossing West Antarctica.

The terminus port town of New Davis has it's own unique mixed grid of 12.5 Hz, 16.7 Hz and 50 Hz. Some nearby hydroelectric generators can switch between 12.5 and 16.7 Hz if need be.

First Light, Last Light, First Sun and Last Sun

First Light is when the tallest building in a town gets the first rays of the Spring Sun. First Sun is when the full globe of the Sun can first be seen from the town square.  Last Light and Last Sun are the reverse from the Fall Sun.  These measures vary by location of course, and there a holidays for each.

Directions

"East, West, North and South" do not adapt well to the high latitudes of Antarctica. Instead people use "Poleward, Sunward (meaning the apex of the noon Sun), Leeward and Windward". The last two reflect the prevailing wind direction.  This gives a radial set of directions.

USAS Antarctica, Ascension & Union

These three ships are designed to provide constant communication between the North and South, without requiring large "Grand Convoys" every few years.  Shipping dates still need to be timed to avoid the height of the Northern Atlantic hurricane season.

They do not sail alone, but in pairs or all three together.

Although equipped with sails, they have substantial speed and range on bio-diesel. Two large piston, slow rpm diesel generators produce electricity to drive three electric motor driven screws. Except for crossing the Southern Ocean, the ships usually run with only one generator.

The hulls, decks, masts and framing of this class of ship is made of titanium. Corrosion resistance and strength with light weight make for an ideal hull that should last for well over a century (with interior rebuilds).  The interior is made of marine plywood, wood and some plastics to keep weight at a minimum. 

The hull has a modest tumbledown above the waterline to resist boarding and improve maneuverability. And if the Islamic powers ever develop radar in the next century, tumble down hulls have a reduced radar signature.

The USAS Antarctica and Ascension are nearly identical sister ships. The Union is a copy with every dimension increased by 1/8th - for a 42% increase in tonnage, a 50% increase in passengers, a 55% increase in range and a 45% increase in cargo capacity.

The Antarctica and Ascension hulls are built with mainly 11 mm titanium plate, thicker than necessary for protection from pirate cannon. The Union uses 12 mm thick plate.

This class are the first ships with adequate electrical power, and size, for Alexanderson antennas for long wave broadcasts. They are limited to adapted Morse code but they need not be out of contact for the entire voyage.

They also each have a freezer in the cargo bay for cargo requiring freezing or low controlled temperatures.

Armament
Antarctica - Two 110 mm cannons in a turret just forward of the forward mast,
Two 88 mm cannon in a turret aft of the rear mast. Both are adaptations of WW II Krupp designs
One 57 mm Bofors gun (high rate of fire) in a turret just forward of the main mast

Ascension - Two 110 mm cannons in a turret just forward of the forward mast,
One 110 mm cannon in a turret aft of the rear mast, instead of two 88 mm cannon
One 57 mm Bofors gun (high rate of fire) in a turret just forward of the main mast

Union - Two 110 mm cannons in a turret just forward of the forward mast (sized for expansion to 120 to 125 mm when available)
Two 110 mm cannon in a turret aft of the rear mast (also sized for an future upgrade)
One 57 mm Bofors gun (high rate of fire) in a turret just forward of the main mast
Two 57 mm Bofors guns, mounted as "waist" guns, port & starboard, mounted just below deck level forward of the rear mast

Railways

Vehicles - Most railcars, passenger, freight or mixed, are self propelled 4 axle EMU (electric multiple units). A 45 to 90 kW electric motor drives each axle (in a paired set-up know as PCC truck). The lead EMU requires an operator and controls. In some areas, power comes for an over head wire. In other areas, from a third rail. All EMUs have both a pantograph and a 3rd rail shoe.

EMUs can reliably use track with a 5.5% grade without dropping sand in front of the wheels and 8% with dropping sand.

Background - A Very Brief View of the World circa 2420

North America is well covered in the original Star's Reach. Three civil wars in Meriga, the desertification of the center of what was the USA, and so forth.

Australia, including Tasmania, has utterly collapsed both socially and environmentally. There are 100,000 to 200,000 mainly hunter gatherers on the main continent. Very limited subsistence agriculture in the formerly Snowy and Blue Mountains. 10,000 to 20,000 in Tasmania.

China, within it's current cultivated boundaries, is largely uninhabitable due to environmental toxins. Any long term population there develops such severe health problems and birth defects that they cannot sustain a viable population. Taiwan and the mountains of the Southwest are not so badly polluted. Tibet, with a mainly Han Chinese ethnic population, is broken into many small fiefdoms.

New China is the Chinese migration north into Siberia - bordering the Rus more than a thousand km east of the Ural Mountains. With few ruins to salvage, it is metal poor and communication is a major obstacle. A few mines provide speciality metals for trading, but there is no steel industry. Kingdoms line the various major river valleys, sometimes uniting the length of the river, and more often, fragmenting.

None-the-less, New China leads the world in plant breeding for the new environment in former boreal forests.

Taiwan is independent and resorts to piracy and raids with minimal industry.

Japan expanded in the last days of the Old World, and then fragmented. Today, Japanese is spoken around the Northern Pacific Rim, but they are not unified. This has limited an industrial revival.

South America has fragmented into a variety of new nations with a mixture of governments. Some military dictatorships, some kingdoms, some democracies for the elite and even one real democracy - Central Chile. The nations of South America now co-exist in relative peace - with some bandit areas - and this has allowed some modest industrial progress. A few steam locomotive rail lines still operate for example.

Africa is contentious, with ever changing power blocs, alliances and wars. Periodically a major power emerges, but rarely continues more than a generation or two. None-the-less, some technology has been recovered.

New Zealand - The North Island has several strong sheriffs that owe nominal fealty to their King. The South Island is split into two Republics and a Kingdom. The Union has helped all four keep their small hydroelectric plants going, a couple of rail lines and supplied semi-finished goods for domestic manufacturing.




more later

First Settlement Tasmania

This is about a decade in the future from the rest.

First, let us review our strategic objectives so we can see how the first settlement fits into the larger goals.

Tasmania can serve as a much larger version of Ascension Island, serving as a staging point for trade into both the Indian and western Pacific Oceans as well as aiding trade with Zealand. Some have speculated that by adding a Hawaiian island, we can establish another North-South trade and radio link via the Pacific. An alternative and back-up to our critical link in the Atlantic today.

Alternatively, if Tasmania is settled by a hostile power, it could be an big a thorn as the Islamic Azores are today.

At the moment Tasmania is an attractive, fertile land with good energy resources and few toxins - waiting for the picking. We want to pick it first {chuckle}.

The mainland of Australia is not very attractive for settlement, but some spots along the coast could be settled later. Tasmania would be ideal to keep that option open.

Settling the interior of Tasmania could be an invaluable addition to Antarctica and the Union. It has a warmer and wetter climate that any part of Scandinavia, and dramatically different than Antarctica. Many crops could be grown there that we have to trade for otherwise. And it would provide food security for Antarctica if we have a bad series of volcanic eruptions.

In coming centuries, the world's climate may start cooling. Tasmania, and Australia itself, may become our new homes in a thousand years. But we have to claim them now !

The ecology of Tasmania is "rats & cats". The Ozies ate every animal larger than a cat or a rat. There are no larger mammals or reptiles and few birds of any type. 

This may present a challenge in farming - but we shall have to try and see what can be done. Some technical historians from the North have some ideas on how to improve the ecology.  This degraded ecology may be our greatest challenge in settling Tasmania.

The aborigines are hunter gatherers. We plan to take what we want & need and let them adjust to a slowly shrinking range.  Over time, we will develop more sophisticated strategies. Perhaps offering food with birth control of abortifacents in it to control their population. Perhaps educating their young and make them citizens. It is too early to say for sure.

Here is our proposed plan to start.

We establish a base camp, later to become a major port, about 3 km inland on the Pieman River.  This will have a wharf, a warehouse, housing, two zeppelin masts, solar PV, three 225 kW wind turbines and silver zinc batteries. And a couple of 75 mm cannon and 40 mm Bofors guns.  Two zeppelins, #1 and #5, Kristiana and Ingrid, will be flown there and based there. Kristiana for scouting and moving people & small amounts of freight. Ingrid for heavier lifting and a longer range survey of SouthEast Australia at some later date.

The next major base will be at the dam on Pieman River on the western coast.  The rise in sea level has put the power plant far under water, but the dam still stands and fresh water flows both over the spillway and through the Old World powerplant.

We can sail, under power, from the sea up a narrow and twisting canyon 34 km to that dam. The steady release of fresh water has made the surface of that inlet fresh water with mildly brackish water underneath with apparently good fishing.

The first task at the dam will be installing a wharf and a funicular up the surface of the dam. Simply building a wharf and funicular from the base of the dam to a Settlement on top of a ridge will take some time.  Fortunately, one can work year-round in Tasmania, another advantage in settling there.

The water over the spillway can be harnessed for hydroelectric power.  Power will come from solar panels at the very beginning. Soon, some of the water flowing over the dam will be diverted into a new penstock to drive a 1.3 MW Pelton wheel. This will be enlarged to a full hydroelectric plant with about 90 MW of Francis turbines within 5 years.

There is not enough level ground near the dam for much more than a Settlement with gardens, but we can plant a wide variety of fruit and nut trees nearby.

Further up the lake are three 80 MW Old World hydropower plants that we can easily reach.  Two of the three appear to be repairable - with considerable work. We plan to develop power intensive industries in Tasmania - aluminum smelting, electric arc steel furnaces, copper purification and more. Several other Old World hydroelectric plants are also nearby, but less accessible.

The lake behind the dam provides communication deeper into the interior. We hope to build a rail line and transmission line from the lake behind the dam to the port. In twenty years, we hope to have a self supporting community of 8,000 to 10,000 people clustered around the first two settlements. Exporting dried fruit and nuts, canned vegetables as well as refining metals.  A solid base for trading ships going North or to Zealand. Then we will establish another settlement elsewhere in Tasmania.

The area is generally rugged and appears to have very few aborigines. We have not sited one in several surveys of the area, but twice we have found old campfires.  None-the-less, precautions need to be made.

Unlike the mainland, the Tasmanian aborigines do not appear to have crossbows. Throwing sticks, sharpened wood spears, clubs and very primitive bows and arrows appear to be their most formidable weapons. We expect their allegiance to be towards their group, which will be fewer than 200 people and less than 75 adult men.  This puts an upper limit on the likely local threat.

On the other side of the island, we have seen several dugout canoes, but nothing in the West. So our ships should be fairly secure.

Hopefully, we will have no contact, but we will attempt to trade with them if given the chance. We will not trade anything that will raise their level of technology or increase their numbers.

more later

Speech before the Riksdag

Fellow Citizens - I welcome this opportunity to speak to you.  In fact, I wanted to do so so much that I traveled quite a distance to be here. {laughter}

These last two and a half months of visiting you here has been a wonderful experience.  I have seen so much - including the hard work and innovation of the people of Antarctica. I have talked with and listened to our citizens of the South.  You are a remarkable people !

Hard working, honest, innovative, cooperative - you have made a home on what was just bare cold rock when you first settled here. The challange required foresight and intelligence as well as back breaking hard work !

One of my roles as President is to think ahead of the problems of today to the opportunities of tomorrow. And Antarctica has many opportunities !  Sorting these opportunities out may be  overlooked as we focus on next year's budget - or should tobacco be legalized.




I would like to ask this assembly to appoint two members of the Union Technology Committee to reside in the North and rotate regularly with our more frequent shipping. In addition, I suggest two more members of the committee to reside in Antarctica and attend meetings by radio contact. Four members will give Antarctica slightly more representation than their population would suggest, but after over three centuries of no representation, I think that this is only fair.