Slashdot Mirror
Domain: uq.edu.au
Stories and comments across the archive that link to uq.edu.au.
Comments · 212
-
Queensland university article textHyShot program secures place in flight history
University of Queensland researchers today (August 16) claimed success for the world`s first flight test of supersonic combustion, the process used in an air-breathing supersonic ramjet engine, known as a scramjet.
"Our honest understanding from preliminary data is that the experiment worked," said international HyShot(TM) program leader Dr Allan Paull, of UQ's Centre for Hypersonics.
"We received data for the full length of the 10-minute flight. All indications are that supersonic combustion occurred. We'll now be submitting the results to international peer review."
On July 30 a safe and successful launch of a Terrier Orion Mk 70 rocket containing a scramjet payload was held at Department of Defence's Woomera Instrumented Range, 500km north of Adelaide, in the South Australian desert.
The aim of the HyShot(TM) program is to provide the world's first in-flight tests of scramjet technology, validating experiments held in ground test facilities.
While scramjets raise the possibility of Sydney to London flights in two hours, they are set to revolutionise the launch of small space payloads, such as communications satellites, by substantially lowering costs. They have the added benefit that they do not even have to carry most of their propellant as they use oxygen from the atmosphere.
University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay congratulated the international HyShot(TM) team on its success, which he said put Australia at the forefront of this new technology and enhanced the country's international prestige in space research.
"It's a magnificent example of international collaboration, involving researchers from Australia, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Korea and Japan," he said.
Professor Hay is chair of the Group of Eight, Australia's leading research-intensive universities which produce the majority of Australian scientific research.
"Australia has proved we can develop this technology at a fraction of the cost of overseas programs. We must now build on success and secure the program in Australia so the intellectual property is not lost to the country. The danger is that the program could move offshore.
"Dr Paull has received approaches from top Australian researchers based in NASA, Boeing and other organizations keen to return to Australia to work on the HyShot program if suitable funding is available."
Professor Hay said these researchers were trained at UQ's Centre for Hypersonics, which is directed by Professor Richard Morgan. This is the largest group of hypersonics researchers in Australia and the largest University-based hypersonics group in the world, with some of the world's most advanced equipment for simulating velocities of eight times the speed of sound to 50 times the speed of sound, the speeds experienced by reentry vehicles such as space shuttles and after interplanetary missions.
"HyShot(TM) provides a significant opportunity for Australia to reverse the brain drain," Professor Hay said.
Dr Paull said he was negotiating with various groups to conduct an extensive, ongoing and advanced $50 million program of six flights over five years, leading to a free flying scramjet engine. The program would provide information to determine a cost effective launcher based in northern Australia to launch small, lightweight satellites.
"The program has generated lot of international interest," he said. "We currently don't have funding for future flights, but the Japanese, through NAL, have provided funding to build a new payload." Dr Paull will visit international collaborators in the next few weeks for talks on future flight programs.
The recent HyShot(TM) launch was designed to take the scramjet engine to a speed of Mach 7.6 (or more than seven times the speed of sound) for the experiment, using a Terrier Orion rocket. The rocket and payload reached an altitude of 314km before the rocket was configured to fly in a new trajectory pointing the payload back down to earth. The flight experiment took place within only the last few seconds of the flight, lasting almost 10 minutes.
After the Terrier booster had finished its work and subsequently fell 5km downrange, the Orion continued on with the scramjet payload and impacted some 370km downrange of the launch site, very close to the nominal impact point predicted by the scientists.
Radar and four sets of telemetry (radio) tracked the flight. One telemetry station was at Woomera Instrumented Range, while three telemetry officers were stationed at three points of a triangle more than 300km downrange in the middle of the desert. They not only captured the final seconds when the experiment occurred, but one site, to its credit, also captured all but the first 15 seconds of the flight.
Dr Paull said this was a "tremendous achievement."
"All those who were involved in producing this most exciting result are to be commended," he said.
After everyone had gone home, the researchers faced a nail-biting wait for the telemetry officers to come in from the dust with their precious data, before analysis could occur.
Dr Paull said everything appeared to have worked to plan, with only a minor glitch of a horizon sensor to turn the rocket failing half way through the flight, but a backup system had kicked in, using all their software capabilities.
Astrotech Space Operations senior engineer Dr Morgan Windsor said the job that so few with so little undertook was incredible and the fact that it worked was almost anti-climactic.
"Allan said a number of times that just getting the payload launched was a great success and indeed it was. But now that he has achieved combustion in flight this represents a huge accomplishment and a first internationally. I am so pleased that I had the opportunity this late in my career to support UQ, Allan and his team and have not sensed a greater feeling of accomplishment," Dr Windsor said.
Professor Hay and Dr Paull thanked all consortium partners and sponsors, in particular:
Astrotech Space Operations/DTI
QinetiQ
Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO)
Defence Corporate Support
Aircraft Research and Development Unit, Australian Defence (ARDU)
the Australian Research Council
NASA Langley Research Center
NAL (National Aerospace Lab. Japan)
AFRL (Air Force Research Laboratory, USA)
DLR (German Aerospace Center)
Seoul National University
DISR
Australian Space Research Institute (ASRI)
BAE Systems Australia
Alesi Technologies
GASL
Aerospatiale Matra
NQEA
UniQuest
Institution of Engineers Australia (Queensland)
Jet Air Cargo
AECA
Luxfer Australia
Media contacts:
UQ Communications - Jan King, telephone 0413 601 248 or 07 3365 1120, Peter McCutcheon, telephone 07 3365 1088 or 0413 380012
Hyshot(TM) stories are available at www.uq.edu.au/hyshot. Photos, attributed to The University of Queensland (photographer Chris Stacey), can be downloaded from http://www.uq.edu.au/news/hyshot/hyshot-gallery.ph p -
Queensland university article textHyShot program secures place in flight history
University of Queensland researchers today (August 16) claimed success for the world`s first flight test of supersonic combustion, the process used in an air-breathing supersonic ramjet engine, known as a scramjet.
"Our honest understanding from preliminary data is that the experiment worked," said international HyShot(TM) program leader Dr Allan Paull, of UQ's Centre for Hypersonics.
"We received data for the full length of the 10-minute flight. All indications are that supersonic combustion occurred. We'll now be submitting the results to international peer review."
On July 30 a safe and successful launch of a Terrier Orion Mk 70 rocket containing a scramjet payload was held at Department of Defence's Woomera Instrumented Range, 500km north of Adelaide, in the South Australian desert.
The aim of the HyShot(TM) program is to provide the world's first in-flight tests of scramjet technology, validating experiments held in ground test facilities.
While scramjets raise the possibility of Sydney to London flights in two hours, they are set to revolutionise the launch of small space payloads, such as communications satellites, by substantially lowering costs. They have the added benefit that they do not even have to carry most of their propellant as they use oxygen from the atmosphere.
University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay congratulated the international HyShot(TM) team on its success, which he said put Australia at the forefront of this new technology and enhanced the country's international prestige in space research.
"It's a magnificent example of international collaboration, involving researchers from Australia, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Korea and Japan," he said.
Professor Hay is chair of the Group of Eight, Australia's leading research-intensive universities which produce the majority of Australian scientific research.
"Australia has proved we can develop this technology at a fraction of the cost of overseas programs. We must now build on success and secure the program in Australia so the intellectual property is not lost to the country. The danger is that the program could move offshore.
"Dr Paull has received approaches from top Australian researchers based in NASA, Boeing and other organizations keen to return to Australia to work on the HyShot program if suitable funding is available."
Professor Hay said these researchers were trained at UQ's Centre for Hypersonics, which is directed by Professor Richard Morgan. This is the largest group of hypersonics researchers in Australia and the largest University-based hypersonics group in the world, with some of the world's most advanced equipment for simulating velocities of eight times the speed of sound to 50 times the speed of sound, the speeds experienced by reentry vehicles such as space shuttles and after interplanetary missions.
"HyShot(TM) provides a significant opportunity for Australia to reverse the brain drain," Professor Hay said.
Dr Paull said he was negotiating with various groups to conduct an extensive, ongoing and advanced $50 million program of six flights over five years, leading to a free flying scramjet engine. The program would provide information to determine a cost effective launcher based in northern Australia to launch small, lightweight satellites.
"The program has generated lot of international interest," he said. "We currently don't have funding for future flights, but the Japanese, through NAL, have provided funding to build a new payload." Dr Paull will visit international collaborators in the next few weeks for talks on future flight programs.
The recent HyShot(TM) launch was designed to take the scramjet engine to a speed of Mach 7.6 (or more than seven times the speed of sound) for the experiment, using a Terrier Orion rocket. The rocket and payload reached an altitude of 314km before the rocket was configured to fly in a new trajectory pointing the payload back down to earth. The flight experiment took place within only the last few seconds of the flight, lasting almost 10 minutes.
After the Terrier booster had finished its work and subsequently fell 5km downrange, the Orion continued on with the scramjet payload and impacted some 370km downrange of the launch site, very close to the nominal impact point predicted by the scientists.
Radar and four sets of telemetry (radio) tracked the flight. One telemetry station was at Woomera Instrumented Range, while three telemetry officers were stationed at three points of a triangle more than 300km downrange in the middle of the desert. They not only captured the final seconds when the experiment occurred, but one site, to its credit, also captured all but the first 15 seconds of the flight.
Dr Paull said this was a "tremendous achievement."
"All those who were involved in producing this most exciting result are to be commended," he said.
After everyone had gone home, the researchers faced a nail-biting wait for the telemetry officers to come in from the dust with their precious data, before analysis could occur.
Dr Paull said everything appeared to have worked to plan, with only a minor glitch of a horizon sensor to turn the rocket failing half way through the flight, but a backup system had kicked in, using all their software capabilities.
Astrotech Space Operations senior engineer Dr Morgan Windsor said the job that so few with so little undertook was incredible and the fact that it worked was almost anti-climactic.
"Allan said a number of times that just getting the payload launched was a great success and indeed it was. But now that he has achieved combustion in flight this represents a huge accomplishment and a first internationally. I am so pleased that I had the opportunity this late in my career to support UQ, Allan and his team and have not sensed a greater feeling of accomplishment," Dr Windsor said.
Professor Hay and Dr Paull thanked all consortium partners and sponsors, in particular:
Astrotech Space Operations/DTI
QinetiQ
Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO)
Defence Corporate Support
Aircraft Research and Development Unit, Australian Defence (ARDU)
the Australian Research Council
NASA Langley Research Center
NAL (National Aerospace Lab. Japan)
AFRL (Air Force Research Laboratory, USA)
DLR (German Aerospace Center)
Seoul National University
DISR
Australian Space Research Institute (ASRI)
BAE Systems Australia
Alesi Technologies
GASL
Aerospatiale Matra
NQEA
UniQuest
Institution of Engineers Australia (Queensland)
Jet Air Cargo
AECA
Luxfer Australia
Media contacts:
UQ Communications - Jan King, telephone 0413 601 248 or 07 3365 1120, Peter McCutcheon, telephone 07 3365 1088 or 0413 380012
Hyshot(TM) stories are available at www.uq.edu.au/hyshot. Photos, attributed to The University of Queensland (photographer Chris Stacey), can be downloaded from http://www.uq.edu.au/news/hyshot/hyshot-gallery.ph p -
Queensland university article textHyShot program secures place in flight history
University of Queensland researchers today (August 16) claimed success for the world`s first flight test of supersonic combustion, the process used in an air-breathing supersonic ramjet engine, known as a scramjet.
"Our honest understanding from preliminary data is that the experiment worked," said international HyShot(TM) program leader Dr Allan Paull, of UQ's Centre for Hypersonics.
"We received data for the full length of the 10-minute flight. All indications are that supersonic combustion occurred. We'll now be submitting the results to international peer review."
On July 30 a safe and successful launch of a Terrier Orion Mk 70 rocket containing a scramjet payload was held at Department of Defence's Woomera Instrumented Range, 500km north of Adelaide, in the South Australian desert.
The aim of the HyShot(TM) program is to provide the world's first in-flight tests of scramjet technology, validating experiments held in ground test facilities.
While scramjets raise the possibility of Sydney to London flights in two hours, they are set to revolutionise the launch of small space payloads, such as communications satellites, by substantially lowering costs. They have the added benefit that they do not even have to carry most of their propellant as they use oxygen from the atmosphere.
University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay congratulated the international HyShot(TM) team on its success, which he said put Australia at the forefront of this new technology and enhanced the country's international prestige in space research.
"It's a magnificent example of international collaboration, involving researchers from Australia, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Korea and Japan," he said.
Professor Hay is chair of the Group of Eight, Australia's leading research-intensive universities which produce the majority of Australian scientific research.
"Australia has proved we can develop this technology at a fraction of the cost of overseas programs. We must now build on success and secure the program in Australia so the intellectual property is not lost to the country. The danger is that the program could move offshore.
"Dr Paull has received approaches from top Australian researchers based in NASA, Boeing and other organizations keen to return to Australia to work on the HyShot program if suitable funding is available."
Professor Hay said these researchers were trained at UQ's Centre for Hypersonics, which is directed by Professor Richard Morgan. This is the largest group of hypersonics researchers in Australia and the largest University-based hypersonics group in the world, with some of the world's most advanced equipment for simulating velocities of eight times the speed of sound to 50 times the speed of sound, the speeds experienced by reentry vehicles such as space shuttles and after interplanetary missions.
"HyShot(TM) provides a significant opportunity for Australia to reverse the brain drain," Professor Hay said.
Dr Paull said he was negotiating with various groups to conduct an extensive, ongoing and advanced $50 million program of six flights over five years, leading to a free flying scramjet engine. The program would provide information to determine a cost effective launcher based in northern Australia to launch small, lightweight satellites.
"The program has generated lot of international interest," he said. "We currently don't have funding for future flights, but the Japanese, through NAL, have provided funding to build a new payload." Dr Paull will visit international collaborators in the next few weeks for talks on future flight programs.
The recent HyShot(TM) launch was designed to take the scramjet engine to a speed of Mach 7.6 (or more than seven times the speed of sound) for the experiment, using a Terrier Orion rocket. The rocket and payload reached an altitude of 314km before the rocket was configured to fly in a new trajectory pointing the payload back down to earth. The flight experiment took place within only the last few seconds of the flight, lasting almost 10 minutes.
After the Terrier booster had finished its work and subsequently fell 5km downrange, the Orion continued on with the scramjet payload and impacted some 370km downrange of the launch site, very close to the nominal impact point predicted by the scientists.
Radar and four sets of telemetry (radio) tracked the flight. One telemetry station was at Woomera Instrumented Range, while three telemetry officers were stationed at three points of a triangle more than 300km downrange in the middle of the desert. They not only captured the final seconds when the experiment occurred, but one site, to its credit, also captured all but the first 15 seconds of the flight.
Dr Paull said this was a "tremendous achievement."
"All those who were involved in producing this most exciting result are to be commended," he said.
After everyone had gone home, the researchers faced a nail-biting wait for the telemetry officers to come in from the dust with their precious data, before analysis could occur.
Dr Paull said everything appeared to have worked to plan, with only a minor glitch of a horizon sensor to turn the rocket failing half way through the flight, but a backup system had kicked in, using all their software capabilities.
Astrotech Space Operations senior engineer Dr Morgan Windsor said the job that so few with so little undertook was incredible and the fact that it worked was almost anti-climactic.
"Allan said a number of times that just getting the payload launched was a great success and indeed it was. But now that he has achieved combustion in flight this represents a huge accomplishment and a first internationally. I am so pleased that I had the opportunity this late in my career to support UQ, Allan and his team and have not sensed a greater feeling of accomplishment," Dr Windsor said.
Professor Hay and Dr Paull thanked all consortium partners and sponsors, in particular:
Astrotech Space Operations/DTI
QinetiQ
Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO)
Defence Corporate Support
Aircraft Research and Development Unit, Australian Defence (ARDU)
the Australian Research Council
NASA Langley Research Center
NAL (National Aerospace Lab. Japan)
AFRL (Air Force Research Laboratory, USA)
DLR (German Aerospace Center)
Seoul National University
DISR
Australian Space Research Institute (ASRI)
BAE Systems Australia
Alesi Technologies
GASL
Aerospatiale Matra
NQEA
UniQuest
Institution of Engineers Australia (Queensland)
Jet Air Cargo
AECA
Luxfer Australia
Media contacts:
UQ Communications - Jan King, telephone 0413 601 248 or 07 3365 1120, Peter McCutcheon, telephone 07 3365 1088 or 0413 380012
Hyshot(TM) stories are available at www.uq.edu.au/hyshot. Photos, attributed to The University of Queensland (photographer Chris Stacey), can be downloaded from http://www.uq.edu.au/news/hyshot/hyshot-gallery.ph p -
Queensland university article textHyShot program secures place in flight history
University of Queensland researchers today (August 16) claimed success for the world`s first flight test of supersonic combustion, the process used in an air-breathing supersonic ramjet engine, known as a scramjet.
"Our honest understanding from preliminary data is that the experiment worked," said international HyShot(TM) program leader Dr Allan Paull, of UQ's Centre for Hypersonics.
"We received data for the full length of the 10-minute flight. All indications are that supersonic combustion occurred. We'll now be submitting the results to international peer review."
On July 30 a safe and successful launch of a Terrier Orion Mk 70 rocket containing a scramjet payload was held at Department of Defence's Woomera Instrumented Range, 500km north of Adelaide, in the South Australian desert.
The aim of the HyShot(TM) program is to provide the world's first in-flight tests of scramjet technology, validating experiments held in ground test facilities.
While scramjets raise the possibility of Sydney to London flights in two hours, they are set to revolutionise the launch of small space payloads, such as communications satellites, by substantially lowering costs. They have the added benefit that they do not even have to carry most of their propellant as they use oxygen from the atmosphere.
University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay congratulated the international HyShot(TM) team on its success, which he said put Australia at the forefront of this new technology and enhanced the country's international prestige in space research.
"It's a magnificent example of international collaboration, involving researchers from Australia, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Korea and Japan," he said.
Professor Hay is chair of the Group of Eight, Australia's leading research-intensive universities which produce the majority of Australian scientific research.
"Australia has proved we can develop this technology at a fraction of the cost of overseas programs. We must now build on success and secure the program in Australia so the intellectual property is not lost to the country. The danger is that the program could move offshore.
"Dr Paull has received approaches from top Australian researchers based in NASA, Boeing and other organizations keen to return to Australia to work on the HyShot program if suitable funding is available."
Professor Hay said these researchers were trained at UQ's Centre for Hypersonics, which is directed by Professor Richard Morgan. This is the largest group of hypersonics researchers in Australia and the largest University-based hypersonics group in the world, with some of the world's most advanced equipment for simulating velocities of eight times the speed of sound to 50 times the speed of sound, the speeds experienced by reentry vehicles such as space shuttles and after interplanetary missions.
"HyShot(TM) provides a significant opportunity for Australia to reverse the brain drain," Professor Hay said.
Dr Paull said he was negotiating with various groups to conduct an extensive, ongoing and advanced $50 million program of six flights over five years, leading to a free flying scramjet engine. The program would provide information to determine a cost effective launcher based in northern Australia to launch small, lightweight satellites.
"The program has generated lot of international interest," he said. "We currently don't have funding for future flights, but the Japanese, through NAL, have provided funding to build a new payload." Dr Paull will visit international collaborators in the next few weeks for talks on future flight programs.
The recent HyShot(TM) launch was designed to take the scramjet engine to a speed of Mach 7.6 (or more than seven times the speed of sound) for the experiment, using a Terrier Orion rocket. The rocket and payload reached an altitude of 314km before the rocket was configured to fly in a new trajectory pointing the payload back down to earth. The flight experiment took place within only the last few seconds of the flight, lasting almost 10 minutes.
After the Terrier booster had finished its work and subsequently fell 5km downrange, the Orion continued on with the scramjet payload and impacted some 370km downrange of the launch site, very close to the nominal impact point predicted by the scientists.
Radar and four sets of telemetry (radio) tracked the flight. One telemetry station was at Woomera Instrumented Range, while three telemetry officers were stationed at three points of a triangle more than 300km downrange in the middle of the desert. They not only captured the final seconds when the experiment occurred, but one site, to its credit, also captured all but the first 15 seconds of the flight.
Dr Paull said this was a "tremendous achievement."
"All those who were involved in producing this most exciting result are to be commended," he said.
After everyone had gone home, the researchers faced a nail-biting wait for the telemetry officers to come in from the dust with their precious data, before analysis could occur.
Dr Paull said everything appeared to have worked to plan, with only a minor glitch of a horizon sensor to turn the rocket failing half way through the flight, but a backup system had kicked in, using all their software capabilities.
Astrotech Space Operations senior engineer Dr Morgan Windsor said the job that so few with so little undertook was incredible and the fact that it worked was almost anti-climactic.
"Allan said a number of times that just getting the payload launched was a great success and indeed it was. But now that he has achieved combustion in flight this represents a huge accomplishment and a first internationally. I am so pleased that I had the opportunity this late in my career to support UQ, Allan and his team and have not sensed a greater feeling of accomplishment," Dr Windsor said.
Professor Hay and Dr Paull thanked all consortium partners and sponsors, in particular:
Astrotech Space Operations/DTI
QinetiQ
Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO)
Defence Corporate Support
Aircraft Research and Development Unit, Australian Defence (ARDU)
the Australian Research Council
NASA Langley Research Center
NAL (National Aerospace Lab. Japan)
AFRL (Air Force Research Laboratory, USA)
DLR (German Aerospace Center)
Seoul National University
DISR
Australian Space Research Institute (ASRI)
BAE Systems Australia
Alesi Technologies
GASL
Aerospatiale Matra
NQEA
UniQuest
Institution of Engineers Australia (Queensland)
Jet Air Cargo
AECA
Luxfer Australia
Media contacts:
UQ Communications - Jan King, telephone 0413 601 248 or 07 3365 1120, Peter McCutcheon, telephone 07 3365 1088 or 0413 380012
Hyshot(TM) stories are available at www.uq.edu.au/hyshot. Photos, attributed to The University of Queensland (photographer Chris Stacey), can be downloaded from http://www.uq.edu.au/news/hyshot/hyshot-gallery.ph p -
Queensland university article textHyShot program secures place in flight history
University of Queensland researchers today (August 16) claimed success for the world`s first flight test of supersonic combustion, the process used in an air-breathing supersonic ramjet engine, known as a scramjet.
"Our honest understanding from preliminary data is that the experiment worked," said international HyShot(TM) program leader Dr Allan Paull, of UQ's Centre for Hypersonics.
"We received data for the full length of the 10-minute flight. All indications are that supersonic combustion occurred. We'll now be submitting the results to international peer review."
On July 30 a safe and successful launch of a Terrier Orion Mk 70 rocket containing a scramjet payload was held at Department of Defence's Woomera Instrumented Range, 500km north of Adelaide, in the South Australian desert.
The aim of the HyShot(TM) program is to provide the world's first in-flight tests of scramjet technology, validating experiments held in ground test facilities.
While scramjets raise the possibility of Sydney to London flights in two hours, they are set to revolutionise the launch of small space payloads, such as communications satellites, by substantially lowering costs. They have the added benefit that they do not even have to carry most of their propellant as they use oxygen from the atmosphere.
University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay congratulated the international HyShot(TM) team on its success, which he said put Australia at the forefront of this new technology and enhanced the country's international prestige in space research.
"It's a magnificent example of international collaboration, involving researchers from Australia, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Korea and Japan," he said.
Professor Hay is chair of the Group of Eight, Australia's leading research-intensive universities which produce the majority of Australian scientific research.
"Australia has proved we can develop this technology at a fraction of the cost of overseas programs. We must now build on success and secure the program in Australia so the intellectual property is not lost to the country. The danger is that the program could move offshore.
"Dr Paull has received approaches from top Australian researchers based in NASA, Boeing and other organizations keen to return to Australia to work on the HyShot program if suitable funding is available."
Professor Hay said these researchers were trained at UQ's Centre for Hypersonics, which is directed by Professor Richard Morgan. This is the largest group of hypersonics researchers in Australia and the largest University-based hypersonics group in the world, with some of the world's most advanced equipment for simulating velocities of eight times the speed of sound to 50 times the speed of sound, the speeds experienced by reentry vehicles such as space shuttles and after interplanetary missions.
"HyShot(TM) provides a significant opportunity for Australia to reverse the brain drain," Professor Hay said.
Dr Paull said he was negotiating with various groups to conduct an extensive, ongoing and advanced $50 million program of six flights over five years, leading to a free flying scramjet engine. The program would provide information to determine a cost effective launcher based in northern Australia to launch small, lightweight satellites.
"The program has generated lot of international interest," he said. "We currently don't have funding for future flights, but the Japanese, through NAL, have provided funding to build a new payload." Dr Paull will visit international collaborators in the next few weeks for talks on future flight programs.
The recent HyShot(TM) launch was designed to take the scramjet engine to a speed of Mach 7.6 (or more than seven times the speed of sound) for the experiment, using a Terrier Orion rocket. The rocket and payload reached an altitude of 314km before the rocket was configured to fly in a new trajectory pointing the payload back down to earth. The flight experiment took place within only the last few seconds of the flight, lasting almost 10 minutes.
After the Terrier booster had finished its work and subsequently fell 5km downrange, the Orion continued on with the scramjet payload and impacted some 370km downrange of the launch site, very close to the nominal impact point predicted by the scientists.
Radar and four sets of telemetry (radio) tracked the flight. One telemetry station was at Woomera Instrumented Range, while three telemetry officers were stationed at three points of a triangle more than 300km downrange in the middle of the desert. They not only captured the final seconds when the experiment occurred, but one site, to its credit, also captured all but the first 15 seconds of the flight.
Dr Paull said this was a "tremendous achievement."
"All those who were involved in producing this most exciting result are to be commended," he said.
After everyone had gone home, the researchers faced a nail-biting wait for the telemetry officers to come in from the dust with their precious data, before analysis could occur.
Dr Paull said everything appeared to have worked to plan, with only a minor glitch of a horizon sensor to turn the rocket failing half way through the flight, but a backup system had kicked in, using all their software capabilities.
Astrotech Space Operations senior engineer Dr Morgan Windsor said the job that so few with so little undertook was incredible and the fact that it worked was almost anti-climactic.
"Allan said a number of times that just getting the payload launched was a great success and indeed it was. But now that he has achieved combustion in flight this represents a huge accomplishment and a first internationally. I am so pleased that I had the opportunity this late in my career to support UQ, Allan and his team and have not sensed a greater feeling of accomplishment," Dr Windsor said.
Professor Hay and Dr Paull thanked all consortium partners and sponsors, in particular:
Astrotech Space Operations/DTI
QinetiQ
Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO)
Defence Corporate Support
Aircraft Research and Development Unit, Australian Defence (ARDU)
the Australian Research Council
NASA Langley Research Center
NAL (National Aerospace Lab. Japan)
AFRL (Air Force Research Laboratory, USA)
DLR (German Aerospace Center)
Seoul National University
DISR
Australian Space Research Institute (ASRI)
BAE Systems Australia
Alesi Technologies
GASL
Aerospatiale Matra
NQEA
UniQuest
Institution of Engineers Australia (Queensland)
Jet Air Cargo
AECA
Luxfer Australia
Media contacts:
UQ Communications - Jan King, telephone 0413 601 248 or 07 3365 1120, Peter McCutcheon, telephone 07 3365 1088 or 0413 380012
Hyshot(TM) stories are available at www.uq.edu.au/hyshot. Photos, attributed to The University of Queensland (photographer Chris Stacey), can be downloaded from http://www.uq.edu.au/news/hyshot/hyshot-gallery.ph p -
Re:Solution: Move to CaliforniaThat provision is famous in Silicon Valley. It's considered partly responsible for much of the growth of the semiconductor industry. If you have a new idea, and your employer doesn't like it, then it must not be "related to your employer's business" and you can take it elsewhere.
As for the decompilation problem this guy spent 25 years thinking about, there's a open source C decompiler, although it's rather dated. Commercial decompilers go back a long way; the first one translated IBM 1401 assembler programs into COBOL. The COBOL orientation continues; see Source Recovery. Recovering long-lost business applications seems to be the big market for these things. Decompilation is tough, and the output code is usually ugly (because decompilers tend to lose idioms), but it's certainly been done.
It's a neat problem, and somewhat under-studied. Of course, today a good decompiler would probably be considered a DMCA violation.
-
Re:Any more detailed images of the HyShot?
A simple trip to the second link would give you the gallery page here.
-
Any more detailed images of the HyShot?
No goatse links, thanks.
I'd be interested in seeing what this implimentation of a scramjet looks like on the actual craft.
I've done the usual google search and found this (which was very nice, but is a little video, not a good image), and this,but was wondering if anyone has found anything more detailed.
Ryan Fenton -
Any more detailed images of the HyShot?
No goatse links, thanks.
I'd be interested in seeing what this implimentation of a scramjet looks like on the actual craft.
I've done the usual google search and found this (which was very nice, but is a little video, not a good image), and this,but was wondering if anyone has found anything more detailed.
Ryan Fenton -
A little more info
A diagram of the difference in design between a ramjet and a scramjet engine can be found here.
For more information, check out the HyShot homepage. -
Re:Java != .NET
Java limited people to one language, a language that many coders didn't like.
Which language would that be, then? Would it be BASIC, or COBOL or ADA or Python or FORTH or PASCAL or C or PERL or FORTRAN or LISP or Scheme or Smalltalk or one of these?
In fact, surprise, surprise, there are over 200 different programming languages you can use to write Java VM programs in.
-
Not if you're human...
Nope. Cones are sensitive to red, green and blue (hence the use of RGB in TVs). [...] Luminance really isn't that important.
I recommend reading a bit more on the subject before making such definitive statements. You can start with this:
Spectral sensitivity of the human eye
As you can see, at 650 nm (pure red), the cones are almost blind. The brain combines this information with what it gets from the rods (luminance) and realises that there is some colour there. And since it has no blue, almost no green and only a little yellow, it's translated to "red".
TVs use RGB (red,green,blue) just as they could use CMY (cyan,magenta,yellow) or any other group of complementary colours (of which there is an infinite number - any three colours that are 120 apart in a spectrum wheel will do). It has nothing to do with the actual wavelengths that the receptors in our eyes are tuned to.
You may also want to read some more about how TV colour signals are encoded (messy but interesting) and why current standards are as they are. Do a quick search on the internet and I'm sure you'll find plenty of pages about it.
RMN
~~~
-
Not the firstThese guys have been doing it for a while:
Laser tweezers
, of course, it begs the question as to whether the machine is minaturised is the power source is macroscopic. -
The Pitch Drop Experiment
The Pitch Drop Experiment.
If you check the site out, you will even find a live RealVideo stream of the pitch.Pitch (a derivative of tar once used for waterproofing boats) feels solid at room temperature, and it can easily be shattered with a blow from a hammer. However, at room temperature it is actually fluid.
Quoting from the website:
"In 1927 Professor Parnell heated a sample of pitch and poured it into glass funnel with a sealed stem. Three years were allowed for the pitch to settle, and in 1930 the sealed stem was cut. From that date on the pitch has slowly dripped out of the funnel - so slowly that now, 72 years later, the eighth drop is only just about to fall." -
Re:More coverage...And also:
-
The retrovirus is harmless.The retrovirus is used only as a harmless vehicle for transportation of the good gene. It has an ability to penetrate into cells. Eventually the virus gets destroyed, and the "fixed" gene remains inside.
Gene therapy
Similar method was originally tried on cystic fibrosis patients, but the positive results lasted only for about three weeks, after that repaired cells were replaced back again with the faulty ones.
It seams to be more complicated.
Cystic Fibrosis Gene Therapy -
Centre for Software MaintenanceFor some tools and practical information on reverse engineering
The Centre for Software Maintenance" is hard to beat.Of particular interest is dcc , the GPL decompiler.
Input ".exe" files, and output high level C code. -
Centre for Software MaintenanceFor some tools and practical information on reverse engineering
The Centre for Software Maintenance" is hard to beat.Of particular interest is dcc , the GPL decompiler.
Input ".exe" files, and output high level C code. -
Re:Emulation, code translation...
Code Translation (better known as binary translation) is in fact a hot research topic in many of the big corp's software labs. This is especially true for companies like Intel or HP that had a lot to gain from doing this (migrating customers from a competitor's platform to their platform).
Here's a link to a very mature university research project called UQBT that has some shown some amazing results. And the best part is that its going open-source really soon! -
Re:Go wireless
-
Re:HEHAlmost already been done. Not exactly x86, but Jasmin will convert jasmin 'assembly' code in Java byte code.
Another Java assembler is the Java Bytecode Assembler
To make it even better, there is a Jasmin backend to GCC, so any language that GCC supports can be compiled into Java bytecode!!
-
Beyond touch ...... and biofeedback controllers are now entering commercialisation phase
LL
-
Laf, I remember...
...when Professor Simmons gave a lecture to the Engineering students in the first week of our course in '95. During the speech, he held up a strange cone-shaped nozzle which he explained was a prototype of the amazing scramjet research being conducted in the windtunnel under the complex run by the Mech Eng. department. He stressed the UQ did not stint on its research projects; the nozzle he was holding cost over AUD$10,000 to create. He then placed the scramjet piece on the table next to the podium.
Where is promptly rolled off and fell onto the floor.
Some of the students in the front row tried to dive and catch it, but they were too slow. The tip of the nozzle had hit first, and bent to a 30 degree angle, ruining it.
Professor Simmons was not a popular figure in Mech Eng. for a long time afterwards.
-
HyShot home page
The HyShot home page has lots of cool stuff, such as pictures. The thing is launched on a suborbital rocket which goes to 300km altitude and Mach 7.6 (with some help from gravity on the way down). Compare with Mach 25 for orbit - many rocketplane companies are aiming for suborbital instead of going straight to orbit.
Anyway, back to HyShot, the home page contains lots of details about what happens in what order and all that good stuff.
-
For those looking for extra info ...... try Lonely Planet
A rather interesting fact
-
For those looking for extra info ...... try Lonely Planet
A rather interesting fact
-
For those looking for extra info ...... try Lonely Planet
A rather interesting fact
-
For those looking for extra info ...... try Lonely Planet
A rather interesting fact
-
Re:Now, if only they could...
Lucent's at $6.88. You can buy a rat's ass for anywhere between $4.00 (cull) to $23 (confirmed mated and dated) to $158 (Spontaneous Mutation Congenic). So that's anywhere from a 41% drop in stock price to almost a x23 gain. Of course, these prices are just approximations: you get all the other organs, too. No one would give me a price on just that the anal sphincter.
-
Consider Amateur Laser
I'm not sure of the exact speeds yet, but we are going to be experimenting with using laser for linking APs in Brismesh. Here's some links:
http://www.qsl.net/wb9ajz/laser/laser.htm
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/laser.html
http://www.gbonline.com/~multiplx/wireless/laser /
http://www.emn.org.uk/laser.htm
http://www.n1bug.net/tech/laser/alc_wa6ejo.html
That last link explains how to get around the modulation problems that can slow down standard laser diodes. You find some of these links useful.
David -
There's one in BrisbaneWe are building one in Brisbane.
-
Re:Other languages and bytecode?
There are also a couple of java backends to gcc. One of these is http://www.csee.uq.edu.au/~csmweb/uqbt.html#gcc-j
v m from Christina Cifuentes at the UofQueensland. -
This was being worked on a few years ago.
This was being worked on a few years ago by some people at The University of Queensland. Unfortunately, they got tired of the project (and, if I remember correctly, that they weren't getting much popular support).
Their website is at :
http://www.csee.uq.edu.au/~csmweb/uqbt.html
"UQBT - A Resourceable and Retargetable Binary Translator"
To note, they mention that they got some funding from Sun for a few years. (Likely either causing or due to their work on writing a gcc compiler back-end that emits Java byte-codes.) -
Re:Tax CreditsTechnically you can get more than a fraction back. For example, in Australia, you can get 125% deduction on R&D, even 175% if you undertake marginal increase above and beyond a rolling average. So in theory, if you wanted to set up a server in Australia dedicated to reverse-engineering closed software for "interoperability" reasons, then if you structured it properly, you'd get the government owning you a lot of money. This is also given another name
However, on reflection it would be a glorious legal hack to set up OpenSource servers in Australia to undertaken R&D projects in stuff like quantum computing or DNA computing (theory/code) and let the government handle the paperwork. Costs would be recovered by securitising the future tax windfall from any real discovery. ie discount the net 75% differential by the risk factor. ie supposing someone came up with a useful and aptentable application of quantum computing. Then you've suddenly recovered your sunk costs (basically server + mailing list + perhaps some prototypes). However, this is risky (about the same level as finding treasure ships but without the maps
LL
-
Re:Tax CreditsTechnically you can get more than a fraction back. For example, in Australia, you can get 125% deduction on R&D, even 175% if you undertake marginal increase above and beyond a rolling average. So in theory, if you wanted to set up a server in Australia dedicated to reverse-engineering closed software for "interoperability" reasons, then if you structured it properly, you'd get the government owning you a lot of money. This is also given another name
However, on reflection it would be a glorious legal hack to set up OpenSource servers in Australia to undertaken R&D projects in stuff like quantum computing or DNA computing (theory/code) and let the government handle the paperwork. Costs would be recovered by securitising the future tax windfall from any real discovery. ie discount the net 75% differential by the risk factor. ie supposing someone came up with a useful and aptentable application of quantum computing. Then you've suddenly recovered your sunk costs (basically server + mailing list + perhaps some prototypes). However, this is risky (about the same level as finding treasure ships but without the maps
LL
-
Re:Glass is not a liquid.
It isn't glass, but this 70-yr old experiment at UQ in Australia shows pitch isn't all that solid...
http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/pitchdrop/pitchdrop.s html -
Forward thinking groupWow these guys are really looking to the future for this stuff. They are not limiting themselves to mere aircraft. They also posted this research about future spacecraft.
They also claim that they have set the world speed record for a chamaign cork (40 km/s) here (bottom)
-
Forward thinking groupWow these guys are really looking to the future for this stuff. They are not limiting themselves to mere aircraft. They also posted this research about future spacecraft.
They also claim that they have set the world speed record for a chamaign cork (40 km/s) here (bottom)
-
DecompilationYou could presumably reverse-engineer the source with a C decompiler. Existing decompilers aren't very good, but beat reading disassembler output.
In general, C decompiling doesn't recover macros, inlines, local variable names, or compiler idioms, so you get back something that looks like assembler expressed as C source. You're lucky to get something back you can compile. Decompiling is an area that needs more work.
-
Re:I wish Java didn't mean two things
-
Re:I wish Java didn't mean two things
-
Re:Mainstream v. subcultureWords are meant for communication, and majority rules when it comes to communication.
I don't know a polite way to put this - take your democratic values and shove it. Language is a method of communication. There is no democracy, no majority, nothing like that. Those are social conventions. Keep them seperate and distinct from language - they are NOT related. Don't go confusing the issue by injecting your own prejudiced views into the matter.
A very small group of people decided that "gay" means "homosexual".
That "very small" number is between 9.2 and 16.7 percent in the US ("The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States." Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). From that, I'd say that's not a "very small number" and further, I'd assert that they represent a larger percentage per capita than the "geek community". Also, they have not objected to being called "gay" or "lesbian", as evidenced by "Gay Pride" parades which are now common in many large metropolitan areas.
Sorry, but one of the sense of "hacker" IS "someone who break security".
According to the Hacker Dictionary, aka the Jargon file, and the authoritative source for jargon in the computer culture, that definition is depreciated - the correct term is cracker.
It's only recently that people have decided that they don't like the criminal aspect to that behavior, and so are trying to chop off that definition and place it into "cracker".
Anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests otherwise. By simply going through old usenet posts - the oldest records I cold find, I was able to determine that heated debates over this existed as early as 1996. I recall from my own personal memory that even in the early 90's there was a debate over this - during the BBSing days. This would be circa 1992. One thing is certain - this isn't a new issue. The issue has even been incorporated into some people's teaching materials in linguistics!
In any case, you'll note that the people are are cracking systems refer to themselves as hackers
This position is easily rebuffed by the simple fact that you can call yourself anything you want. I can pretend to be an Electrical Engineer, or a Chief Financial Officer. Am I one though? That aside, even systems crackers are not referring to themselves as hackers. They're hardly intelligible as is, but most of them refer to themselves as crackers. Check out #hackers on EFNet sometime if you don't believe me.
Now that I'm done - please, save yourself some work - just see things my way.
--
-
more links
Developers mailing list archive - http://www.mail-archive.com/openssl-dev@openssl.o
r g/
SSLeay doco - http://www.columbia.edu/~ariel/ssleay/
SSLeay FAQ - http://www2.psy.uq.edu.au/~ftp/Crypto/
Dr Stephen Henson's home page - http://www.drh-consultancy.demon.co.uk/ Agreed, some of it's pretty sparse. Join the developer mailing list and ask a few questions - www.openssl.org -
not the algorithm, the library
There are two big libraries out and they are related: SSLeay and OpenSSL. OpenSSL is based on the SSLeay libraies, both are open source. SSLeay has been around for a number of years and I have heard glowing reviews. This was also the first Open Source encryption library ever to obtain Verisign certificates.
The fellow who made SSLeay (Eric Young) also has some stand-along libraries for encrypting buffers. I saw a Blowfish one for example.
One note: encryption is easy to do, hard to do right. For example, Word Perfect had an encryption feature broken awhile back. It was broken because a section of the data was always the same. To crack the file all the person had to do was do the math:
encrypted data - known data = key.
This is a number of years ago but that will happen over and over again if the programmer doesn't understand the concepts behind data encryption.
Just a plug: you might find Blowfish to be considerably faster than other algorithms. This is not because of simplicity but because the algorithm can take advantage of 32bit processors. It also does not have known weaknesses like DES nor patent restrictions like IDEA. Elliptical Curve is another worth looking into if you can't wait for the RSA patent to expire.
Ozwald -
Why tackle Go instead of Chess?
*sigh* Hopefully, this should be the last thing I will append onto my own thread.
For a complete survey of Computer Go hit this link where I got most of my material.
As I mentioned before, Go has a even larger branching factor than chess which does some implications. A brute-force search method cannot be used in Go. This implies a whole paradigm shift in tackling Go. Second, this means that perhaps even when faster machines appear, they might not improve a Go program's playing ability by a lot. Rather, to improve Go programs would require improving the algorithms.
So why tackle Go instead of Chess? I feel that to make a computer play Go effectively you would need to be able to recognize patterns and act on intuition due to its impossibly large search space. i.e. brute-force searching is secondary (you still need it to determine life/death of groups) in this case. You need to incorporate tons of knowledge into Go programs, much more than you would need in Chess programs. In addition some form of functional approximation (neural networks?) will be needed to abstract all the knowledge and apply it effectively on the board. Unfortunately, many experiments involving neural networks and Go have been failures. This suggests that some new technique will be required to play Go well.
If this technique is found, the same method could possibly be applied to many areas that other people have brought up in this thread. e.g. Computer chess then can be based on pattern recognization and these programs will probably play more "human-like" and Computer vision problems can (big perhaps) can benefit from this.
On the other hand, solving chess would simply require many many more machine hours of number crunching and would have applications to other fields of computer science. -
NOT Popular Mechanics..... (And Encyclopedia...)
For everyone who can't/won't do a google search themselves.
Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL)
www.google.com/search?q =Air+Force+MOL+&num=10&lc=www
www.airspacemag.com/ ASM/Mag/Index/1998/JJ/Contents.html
www.farhills.org/s/lees/space/air force.htm
Dyna Soar
www.google.com/search?q=dynasoar&lc= www
www.google.com/search?q=dyna+soar+%2Bsmithsonian&n um=10&lc=www&btnG=Google+Search BR> www.arnold.af.mil/aedc/systems/60- 933.htm
www.nasm.edu/galle ries/gal114/SpaceRace/sec500/sec540.htm
www.hq.nasa.gov/offi ce/pao/History/Timeline/1961-4.html
Blue Gemini
www.google.com/search?q=Bl ue+Gemini&num=10&lc=www
student.uq.edu.au/~s373901/land
www.hq.nasa.gov/office/ pao/History/SP-4203/ch6-2.htm
LK Lander
www.google.com/search? q=%2BLK+%2BLander&num=10&lc=www
www.interaxs.net/pub/spacey/lk1.htm
www.ninfinger.org/~sven/mode ls/sovietsp/lk.html
Spiral
www.google.com
www.mcs.net/~rusaerog/spiral/spiral
General Spacecraft info
www.rocketry.com/mwade/spaceflt.htm Encyclopedia Astronautica -
Re:An Algorithm For Consciousness
Sure I'll be more specific
J. L. Elman, Finding Structure in Time, Cognitive Science, 14:179-211, 1990. Simulation: ``Discovering lexical classes from word order'' pp 194-203. Jeff Elman's hompage is here, where you can find a copy of this paper in compressed postscript. You can see in this paper, NN's discovering lexical class, generalizing, and perdicting words. There is a simple HTML overview of Elman's paper here
I collected 450,000 MindPixels on the web in 1995/96. I've trained SRN's using that corpus and used PCA to look at the SRN's internal structure. Though the network did perform well (due the the small sample), it's structure is a complex fractal. (I should note, trained the network on a constrained prediction task; where after every word it saw, it had to predict only true or false)
And as for how I would generalize consciousness from such a system... Presenting MindPixels to a system is a Binary Turing Test (see my article: K. C. McKinstry, The Minimum Intelliget Signal Test, An Alternative Turing Test, Canadian Artificial Intelligence, Issue 41), that is much more objective than a traditional TT. It gives a probability that a system is human, that is reproducable. Thus, if I get a number back that is statistically indistinguishable from human, I must logically assume the system is human. That is feels, lives a life and is conscious.
A giant corpus of MindPixels collected and validated from a large number of people is a digitial model of self and environment. A NN experiencing the model, would be experiencing an average human life, in all it's details. If we ever hope to make a conscious machine, we need to get our experience into machines. AI's goal until now has been to make some sort of bootstrap system that would go out into the world and learn to be conscious just like children do. The AI community has shuned the 'code it all' philosophy (with the notable exception of CYC) as just too much work. But, the web changes all that. Now, instead of a small number of programmers trying to code a large amount of world knowledge (CYC), we can take an enourmous amount of 'programmers' each entering a minimum amount of consensus human experience (a MindPixel) and actually get the job done.
-
Re:Internet Go Servers
Yes, but Go is far more difficult for a computer to play. The best chess programs/computers in the world can play at the level of the best human chess players. On the other hand, the best computer Go programs in the world can only just barely play at the level of an average amature (about 5-10 kyu) human player. This is partly due to more attention being placed on writing good computer chess programs, but also it's due to the complexity and subtleties of Go. If you're interested, here an interesting paper on programming computer Go. http://www2.psy.uq.edu.au/~jay/go/ CS-TR-339.html
For all you programmers, there is currently a prize offered by the Ing Foundation of Taiwan of about $1.5 million for any Go program that can beat a top professional human in The Ing World Computer Go Congress. -
Introns ?= junk DNA
It is still an open question what role the junk DNA, technically called introns plays in organism development. Unlike the simple unicelluar critters (prokaryotes) such as bateria, all higher level organisms (eukaryotes) have these long non-coding sequences which have been retained across evolutionary generations despite the extra energy/space required. The whole area is akin to the physists search for all the various subatomic particles after the cracking of the atom. We can see the bits and pieces, we can assemble the various sequences, but there's no unifying standard model of how or why. With Nobel prizes and new killer apps in the air, it is not surprising that universities and institutes are throwing money into the research.
The 19th centure might have been the dominance of physics and engineering but there's a lot of speculation and anticipation (especially by the empty hands of the biologists and zoologists) that the next century will be their turn at the gravy train
LL -
final commentsPeter Marko notes that
- Irina was the unofficial team leader from move 10 onwards. The world played her recommendations for 41 consecutive moves until move 51, when ballot-stuffing was first alleged.
This makes the case for ballot-stuffing on moves 51 and 52 quite strong. See Martin Sims' thoughts on moves 51 & 52. - Kasparov was reading the World Team's analysis on the BBS.
Ross Amann notes that
- "Democracy is not served by vote fraud in any election... Clearly, if MSN were running the world's elections, things would be a lot neater!" referring to Microsoft's deletion of votes for 59...Qe1.
- There was vote stuffing on move 56, even after non-Windows voting had been disabled. The 187 votes stuffed for a queen give-away move added to 4.75% of the vote.
The difference between the top two votes on moves 51 and 52 was less than 5%; there are two examples of individuals stuffing over 4% of the vote, making it quite likely that the game was influenced by an individual in the critical moves 51 & 52.
(Microsoft claims the contrary in a carefully worded statement - "never any significant ballot-stuffing until move 59". So 5% is not significant when the vote differences are less than that?). - Finally, the game did not have any problems until move 51. Microsoft did very well for the vast majority of the game - however, it became obvious after move 51 that ballot-stuffing was occurring (despite Microsoft denials) and that Microsoft was unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
- Irina was the unofficial team leader from move 10 onwards. The world played her recommendations for 41 consecutive moves until move 51, when ballot-stuffing was first alleged.