"changing the prevailing scientific culture to a more management-orentated and businesslike culture .... presents a challenge that, in our opinion has been underestimated in terms of the time and effort it will require"

                                                Report of the Canadian Auditor General to the House of Commons  October 1994 Chap. 11

Doctor Dave Unmanaged

or

                    Ulysses Returns                    

Welcome to my web site.  


 I am known as Dr. Dave. I am a problem thinker.

 As you can see, outwardly I was a  typical research physicist. For thirty years I existed on hand outs as a postdoctoral fellow, a research associate, and a  temporary contract worker. I ended in the gutter, sponging on the taxpayer, employed as a  Canadian federal bureaucrat running obsolete equipment and shuffling old data. Inwardly, all my existence, I have nursed an ugly secret: I am addicted to original, creative science.

  While managers were preoccupied writing memos, holding meetings, drafting proposals and fighting over turf, I furtively published reviewed papers in  the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, The Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Journal of the Practical Applications of Space, and the Journal of the Canadian Aeronautical and Space Institute. As a result of my efforts I was invited to be a charter member of the Exo-biology, (now astro-biology) commission of the International Astronomical Union while I was not profitably employed.  As my addiction to creative thinking became worse I wrote commentaries for the prestigious Interdisciplinary Sciences Review. I now confess my pathological creativity finally led me to write the 'Ulysses Speaks' satirical column for  the back page of 'Canadian Research' Magazine. The government disposed of me, but still I kept thinking. I was an editor of the 5th Cosmic Study of the International Academy of Astronautics, and in 1999 presented its conclusions to the congress of the International Astronautical Federation in Amsterdam. Indeed, for over twenty five years I have enjoyed a dubious after office hours life as a panellist and lecturer at science fiction conventions.  

The fen in my audience have often urged me to come into the open about my thinking. But I feared being recognized, severely managed and defunctioned.  I was eventually downsized to the government's discards file more than ten years ago, and now that high speed Internet has come to the Village I can make my thoughts public. You read them at your own risk. Eventually I hope to convert their illustrations on 35 mm slides to a file format.   Bracketing the presentations will be quotations from on high and graffiti from the lower depths.  In this world there are managers and there are peons. Managers p**  on peons, who, as always, will remain faceless, disposable and anonymous.

 Click on the links to download the following Word (.doc) files.   
    

Powering the Twenty First Century  

I have sat on many panels that have addressed some aspect of the world energy crisis, and I have always felt the big picture was being overlooked. This is my attempt to rectify that omission.

Enterprise 2067

The old standby. I first presented this in 1985 and after twenty years
and two world science fiction conventions it is still current and in demand.       Ten years after it was presented, the Lockheed Skunk Works admitted            that  the ideal stealth form was a thin convex  'UFO' shape. Ten years after      that the British National Space Centre announced that women are  better suited to interplanetary space flight. than men.

Romancing the Philosopher's Stone

I presented this at the Boston World Science Fiction Convention in 2004.
Discover that the real Philosopher's Stone is more valuable and more familiar than you imagined.

The Next Small Step

In 1992 as I shuffled paper for my director's presentation to the taskforce on Canada's Space Policy, I submited my own presentation as
an independent citizen. Silly me, writing about vision to managers, politicians and executives.

Tranquillity Catapults

A few musings about the problems of lunar transport.

Brewing in Space

This examines an essential aspect of frontier life has been strangely overlooked by the world's space agencies.

The Orbiting Gourmet

After the drinks comes food! The potential for space based, high cuisine         has been neglected.  I was living in Calgary when I wrote this  essay,  however I believe undercurrents carried a copy to Ottawa where it graced  the notice board of the NRC (No Research Council) during the late '80's.

Destination Delta

Everyone has written an unpublished S.F. novel. Please remember I wrote mine before Y2K,  Extreme Makeover and the recent revelations about modern business practice.  Please enjoy.                            

Looking for an Asteroid Called Elephant

Prospecting for the ore bodies on the last frontier. I was invited to present this at the I.S.P.G. (Institute for Sedimentary and Petroleum Geology) in Calgary in 1988 and no one turned up. I had, however, a large and enthusiastic audience at the International Space Development Conference in Toronto in 1992. In 2005 'Sky News' announced the Baker-Nunn camera at the Rothney Observatory had been refurbished and was now searching for asteroids. A fine example of well managed Canadian Research...better 15 years late than never.

The Flea

A 1990 paper on the potential of a reusable sounding rocket

The Lost Ulysses Speaks

'Ulysses speaks' columns that were abandoned when "Canadian Research" folded.

Its Discovery Day at the Bay

Presented in 1986, published in 'NorthWords' 1994:
The Future of Canadian Space Exploitation, if it had been run from the West .

The Commercialization of Space

My answer to the challenge of a senior manager of an Aerospace Company to "Think Commercially"


Hal and the Singularity

Hal, the computer of the film '2001' has frequently been maligned. He was working perfectly. As you can read here Hal is the only prediction of 2001 to have come to pass in today's reality.

You Wanna Build a Beanstalk?

The discovery of Nanotubes has made the building of a space elevator to take cargoes  up to the Clarke orbit a physical possibility. But would a ski lift to the stars be a practical, profitable and wise investment? 

 Mr. Myazaki's Wonderful Flying Machines

My first anime presentation.  A tour through the skies of Myazakiland to view the flying machines to be found in Hayo Myazaki's films and the history behind them.

I am an enemy of the people

This is the outcome of a panel discussion at ConCept in Montreal in 2008. I confess, I am a scientist,therefore I am an enemy of the only people who matter!

An Inconvenient Truth

A letter written to a fellow panellist following a discussion about how to convince politicians of the importance of science. It is impossible!

Solar Power Satellites


Solar Power Satellites: Panacea or Pie in the Sky?

Energy Choices

During the past decade I have participated in several panels concerned with the global energy future. This is a brief outline of the options before the world in the twenty first century.



                                                                      
  Abandon hope ye scientists who come hither   




Please send any contributions to the scientific tin cup, comments and  criticisms to

dstphnsn@gmail.com

Please include 'Dr. Dave' in the subject to avoid the spam filter 

Thank You.                      

                                                                                                                                    

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You lead from the front, you manage from the rear, that's why you can smell MBA's coming