Tactic 274. Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic. Part 1. October 13, 2026
The bees know: a flower chases the bee. It lights up and waits to be found. This is an attract vector.
This is the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic
Honeylight Universe. Energy Transfer. Honeylight Realm. Project Honeylight. Partnerships. Lead. Tactic 274. How to Assemble a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic. Part 1. Moonshot. October 15, 2026
An attract vector: pulling rides, people, and scenarios into my orbit
The bees know: a flower never chases the bee. It lights up and waits to be found.
apex · 2 o'clock
I. The Ramp Without a Rocket
In 1980 I had a ramp about three feet long, propped twelve inches up on a dresser drawer, with about six dominoes lined up at the bottom. I could tell you the sound of every marble that rolled down it.
I imagined the ramp running out my bedroom window to the edge of space. What I wanted to hear was a marble rolling all the way down from up there into my dominoes. The ramp was easy to picture. I had no way to lift the marble to the top of it.
I had the model. I didn’t have the rocket.
II. The Electronic Thumb (1982)
I first got the idea for hitching a ride on a spaceship from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in 1982. This seemed possible through the use of a machine called a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic. I decided that when the time was right, I was going to build my own Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic, signal the passing spaceships, and send some things on a ride through the solar system.
I added it to my list of future maneuvers:
Build a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic and hitch a ride on a rocket.
A hitchhiker doesn’t need to own the fuel. They need three things: a signal, a towel, and to be ready when the ride shows up. You don’t build the rocket. You build the signal. And every time you lift a signal higher, it gains potential energy.
III. Attract Vectors
A Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic is an attract vector: a way to attract people or scenarios into my orbit.
A flower’s nectar guides are an attract vector for bees. A book at 92,000 feet is an attract vector for people who love space. A drop of honey on a rocket is an attract vector for the next ride.
Attract vectors don’t guarantee anything. They increase the chances that the things I imagine will materialize outside of my mind. Every vector I add, and every rung higher I lift one, raises those chances.
Here’s how to assemble a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic, one attract vector at a time.
IV. The Ladder of Beacons
Rung 1 · About 1,000 feet · A hot-air balloon over Teotihuacan, Mexico (Tactic 001b, April 2022). The first beacon was me. I was drifting over the Pyramid of the Sun with a jar of Honeylight Honey in my lap, working out the launch strategy for Project Honeylight. Pyramids are the most energy-efficient shape for stacking rocks. Three years later, my strategy would land on the Moon inside one.
Rung 2 · 25,000 feet · Perspective of a Perspective (Tactic 010d). I sent up an image of Earth’s curve at the altitude that matched the curve in the picture.
Rung 3 · 45,000 feet · The Highest Book Launch in the Universe! (Tactic 010c). Two chapters of Honey is Money went up into the sky.
Rung 4 · 90,000 feet · Star Rock (Tactic 010b). I sent up an iron meteorite forged in a star that isn’t our sun, and a chase team helped me collect it again from a cornfield. It’s the only confirmed piece of a star to fall from space twice.
Rung 5 · 92,000 feet · Book Launch into Space (Tactic 010a). I sent an image from Honey is Money to the edge of space above Upland, Indiana, to raise the chances of meeting someone with spare cargo capacity on a SpaceX rocket. That was the Sens-O-Matic switching on.
Rung 6 · About 100,000 feet · The moon rock that fell twice (Tactic 014). A meteorite impact knocked it off the Moon about 25,000 years ago. It was found in the Western Sahara around 1920. I sent it back up, and on May 6, 2022, it fell to Earth a second time.
None of these flights was a rocket. Each one was an attract vector: a thumb held a little higher so the right people could see it. They attracted some people and filtered out others.
V. Above the Air
Rung 7 · 1,320,000 feet · The International Space Station (Tactic 276, The Honey Shot). The honey was booked on CRS-33 for August 24, 2025. Then MISSE-21 had a transportation accident, NASA reshuffled its priorities, and our seat disappeared. The honey was reassigned to NG-24, and that ride eventually fell through too. Rule one of hitchhiking: Don’t Panic. Losing a ride doesn’t end the trip; it updates the timetable.
Rung 8 · The Moon (Tactics 275 and 276c). LifeShip saw the thumb. On January 15, 2025, Project Honeylight’s strategy diagram left Earth on a Falcon 9. It was stored on NanoFiche and rode in Ben Haldeman’s LifeShip payload aboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost 1. On March 2, 2025, it landed at Mare Crisium. In December 2026, Honeylight Honey flies to the Moon on Astrolab’s FLIP Rover.
Rung 9 · Asteroid 2022 OB5 (Tactic 282, Sagan’s Billions). Project Honeylight is planned to ride AstroForge’s Vestri lander. That rung is fully out of Earth’s gravity well.
I didn’t build any of these vehicles. I only needed to be on the side of the road, packed and ready, when they went by.
VI. The Potential Energy of a Signal
The potential energy one gram of signal gains at each rung, measured from the ground:
- 1 · 001b · Mexico hot-air balloon · ~1,000 ft3.0 J/g · 1×
- 2 · 010d · Perspective of a Perspective · 25,000 ft75 J/g · 25×
- 3 · 010c · Highest Book Launch · 45,000 ft134 J/g · 45×
- 4 · 010b · Star Rock · 90,000 ft268 J/g · 90×
- 5 · 010a · Book Launch into Space · 92,000 ft274 J/g · 92×
- 6 · 014 · Moon rock that fell twice · ~100,000 ft298 J/g · 100×
- 7 · 276 · Honey Shot, ISS · 1,320,000 ft3,716 J/g · ~1,240×
- 8 · 275 / 276c · The Moon · ~239,000 mi61,500 J/g · ~20,600×
- 9 · 282 · Asteroid 2022 OB5 · beyond Earth’s pull62,600 J/g · ~20,900×
- 10 · 290 · Mars · ~140,000,000 mi355,000 J/g · ~119,000×
Gravitational potential energy per gram relative to Earth’s surface. Mars also counts the climb outward against the Sun’s gravity, minus the drop onto Mars. Bar lengths are on a log scale.
In the balloon range, potential energy rises almost in a straight line with height. Past the Station the climb slows, and Earth’s pull reaches its ceiling at about 62,600 J per gram: the top of Earth’s ramp. Mars is higher again, which makes the Mars rock the highest-energy signal in the whole sequence. It costs energy to move energy. Hitchhiking is the cheapest way to move it, because the rocket’s fuel is already burning and I add the meaning.
VII. What the Bees Already Knew
A flower doesn’t fly to the bee. It paints nectar guides on its petals in ultraviolet, which people can’t see and bees can. Those guides say land here. The bee brings the motion, the flower brings the signal, and honey comes out of the trade. That’s an attract vector: a partnership written in light.
VIII. Assembling the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic
Four parts, and each one is an attract vector:
- The Signal: a public manifest of waiting payloads. The ladder above, with an empty rung at the top. Each payload is listed with its mass, size, destination, and the story it carries.
- The Sensor: the manifest of passing ships. Track CLPS landers, ISS cargo flights, LifeShip, AstroForge, and every rideshare with a few spare grams, and match each payload to a ride.
- The Towel: flight-ready kits. Every payload pre-packed, documented, and labeled, so the answer can be yes within a week.
- The Answer: a QR code on everything. Each payload carries a Honeylight label that links back to its tactic, so whoever finds it can follow the story up the ladder.
IX. The Last Rung
The highest signal has been waiting since September 25, 2020. It’s a Mars rock that left Mars in an impact and crossed space to Earth. Now it’s waiting on the side of the road for a ship heading home. Tactic 290 is the top rung, with about 119,000 times the potential energy per gram of the jar of honey I held over Teotihuacan. Every beacon below it exists so that when I hold out that rock, the ship already knows who’s asking.
When the rock lands, the marble I imagined in 1980 will finally have reached the top of the ramp, and the maneuver I wrote down in 1982 will be complete.
The bees know: you don’t have to own the sky to fly. You have to be easy to find, and ready when the light blinks.
Launch Posts
Post 1.0: No one can predict the future. But you can increase the chances a rocket will carry your dream if you make it easy for the rocket to find you.
Post 1.1: No one can predict the future. But each time you lift a signal higher, it gains potential energy, and more people can see it.
Post 1.2: No one can predict the future. But when a ride falls through, you can increase the chances of catching the next one if you keep your thumb out. Don’t Panic.
Post 1.3: No one can predict the future. But everyone can build a signal, light it up, and wait to be found, the way flowers do.
Post 1.4: No one can predict the future. But every attract vector you build increases the chances that what you imagine will materialize outside your mind.
Data Table
| Tactic Id | Tactic 274 |
|---|---|
| Part | Part 1. Moonshot |
| Name | How to Assemble a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic |
| Origin | 1982 · The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy · build my own Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic, signal the passing spaceships, and send some things on a ride through the solar system |
| Concept | Attract vectors: ways to attract people or scenarios into my orbit, increasing the chances that what I imagine materializes outside my mind |
| Attributes | Attract Vectors, Partnerships, Hitchhiking, Signal, Potential Energy |
| Target Date | October 15, 2026 |
| Related | 001b, 010a–f, 014, 275, 276, 276a, 276c, 276d, 282, 290 |
| Dome Location | Apex · 2 o’clock · lead face (Conscious Actions / Partnerships / Market) |
| Pattern | Space and Time |
| Emotion | Wonder |
| Timing | Always on, from October 2026 through the Final Sequence |
Project Honeylight Launch Sequence
This is the Final Sequence of Project Honeylight
Related Stories
I’m telling a bunch of stories on the Practical Dreaming podcast series that describe the models that I used to make it this far. I also describe my plans up to the year 2030. This story is about imagining the future in 1985 so I could intercept it around now. The story involves the deed at the top of this page.
Long Game Framework
I use a framework for creating the future that I imagine. I’m demonstrating it as part of the worldbuilding I’m doing for Project Honeylight.
Welcome to the campaign!
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| Tactic Id | Tactic 001 |
| Story Id | Story 3 |
| Name | Proof |
| Attributes | World building |
| Date Completed | September 24, 1985 |
| Pattern | Visionary |
| Emotion | Inspiration |
| Timing | Vision sequence (Summer 1985) |
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Summary
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