Siggesta Gård is an art and leisure centre on the road back from Fredricksborg Ruin to Stockholm. There are a number of outdoor activities here, including quite a fun looking minigolf and pony riding.
Siggesta
Neil Hopcroft
A digital misfit
Fredriksborg Ruin
Beyond Rindö Redoubt I was looking for Fredriksborg Ruin, an abandoned castle, but ended up missing the road and heading off into the countryside – eventually I figured out I’d gone too far along the main road and headed back to find the track to the ruin. There were a number of other people there taking photographs.
Book review: We’ll Prescribe you Another Cat by Syou Ishida
[Read aloud to Adelle]
We’ll prescribe you another cat by Syou Ishida
Following on from We’ll prescribe you a cat, this book explores the additional benefit gained from having access to more than one cat.
The Nakagyo Kokoro Clinic for the Soul remains elusive and can only be found by those in need of the treatment it offers. The people in this book have a little more depth than those in the previous one, and there is a little more continuity between the people.
This is more charming whimsy about how cats can help people with problems they didn’t know they had. We find out a little more about the origin of the clinic and people who work there, Dr Nikke and Chitose the nurse.
This book skirts a little close to having a sad ending, but saves itself and opens the way for the third in the series, coming soon.
If you liked the first book, this is more of the same.
Rindö redoubt
On the other side of the channel past Vaxholm is Rindö redoubt. I was looking for lunch but instead found a modern art museum just opening for a new show. This was a little peculiar. Its a fort built late in the 19th century to protect Stockholm from invading Russian ships, but has now been converted into an art gallery.
Bogesunds Slott
In the swamps outside Vaxholm is Bogesunds Slott, a fortified manor.
Swamps near Vaxholm
I took the car to Vaxholm, stopping at some swamps along the way.
Kista after dark again
Some more pictures of Kista after dark.
Gamla Stan at night
The nights are drawing in now, giving me a chance to head to Gamla Stan and take some more pictures of the city lit up across the water.
Broborg
Broborg is an ancient hill fort in Knivsta kommun, it remains somewhat imprenetrable even these days, with the signs suggesting that you climb several banks of boulders to reach the top – there is a better way up but I didn’t find that until I had already scaled the rocks.
Book review: Spacefarers by Christopher Wanjek
[Audiobook]
Spacefarers, How Humans will Settle the Moon, Mars and Beyond by Christopher Wanjek.
This book fills the gap between the Apollo missions and the world of The Expanse, giving a step by step guide to how our exploration of the solar system could go, and details the kinds of problems we’ll need to solve along the way.
Within these pages are some well researched and well described approaches to space exploration, starting with low earth orbit and why the International Space Station is a limited environment for learning about living in space. He considers what would be needed to set up a moon colony, in terms of location, radiation protection, food and other daily living resources, and many other aspects.
This is followed by a tour of the inner planets and an explanation of the choice of Mars as the target for our initial colonial aspirations, and eventually a tour of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. There are some details about composition of these targets, as well as things like their levels of gravity and availability of water and light.
Some of the technologies cited as aiding our departure from Earth are described and their applicability to other locations considered – with skyhooks and space elevators being less problematic on worlds without continual air transport and latent terrorists. He returns on a regular basis to the difficulty of escape from gravity wells, and the energy needed to accelerate and decelerate.
There are some unknowns, like the effect of different levels of gravity on people, both fully grown and developing – there is likely an optimum point between the Earths 1g and zero g for such development, we have only those two data points at the moment. There has been little consideration of research into finding the gravity response curve for (various aspects of) human development – this would not be wildly difficult to do should we put our minds to it, an orbital rotating loop could be designed to test different gravity levels.
The commercial aspects are considered too, exploration must offer some potential return beyond mere showing off, without that missions to space are follies available only to those willing to spend the money for the sake of spending the money.
This book provides some of the hope that has been lacking from practical talk of space exploration over the last couple of decades, although I fear it is still rather optimistic – he makes predictions throughout the book about what will happen when and what it will look like.
The ten year old me, playing with my space cruiser, would have loved to read this book and think about the boundless future. Now, though, I pick up nuance about the limits physics gives us and my dreams are tempered.