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Obviously the best way to increase your chance of survival is to minimise your time in the dead zone, and this is the obvious solution IMO. Honestly, I don't know why nobody has thought of this before.

http://zorb.com/main.html

MIRROR

This is great news! I've known about these screens for a few years, as a friend of mine living in Germany at the time did the translation for one company's promo DVD (if there IS more than one company). Unfortunately, I can't find the name of the company my friend worked for to check. The last I heard (in 2003) was that they were looking for a US distributor, so it looks like they may have found one.

Now if only Zorb would open up a site in eastern PA...

Those micrometeoroids piercing the skin isn't too bad for the bubble. Just a small hole. It's the people and equipment inside that will hate getting sprayed with debris. The way they take care of it on space stations is to create bumpers. An outer shell takes the initial impact. The meteoroid punches through, but shatters and vaporizes, spreading in a plume. The second layer then gets to absorb a reduced impact over a greater area. There's more to it, but that's the basics. To protect an inflatable habitate, it might require a double-bubble, like the Zorb http://www.zorb.com/. Inflate the outer bubble at far less than 1 atm and let it take the punctures. Still have to fix the leaks, but they will be far slower. The inner bubble will be unpunctured.

How about a large, lightweight, hollow ball on rollers? You'd actually get inside the ball, and external projectors would display images through the matte finish. You'd need a pretty big ball to eliminate the feeling that you're constantly walking uphill, and a headband with a locator and a camera, so the game can detect when you're crouching, dodging, and looking to the side (or maybe it doesn't need to care where you're looking). And unlike a controller-based game, there'd be no odd trickery involved in looking one way, walking another, and shooting in yet a third. Weapon control could be simplified as well -- the weapon changes based on how you hold it. Hold it to your shoulder and it's a rifle, hold it outstretched in your hand and it's a pistol, hold it on your shoulder and it's a rocket launcher.

A system like this would be neither cheap nor small, but it should fit into a trailer with a relatively modest amount of tearing down. The ball will probably have to break into many segments, or be double-walled and inflatable. Imagine a large, thin Zorb for some idea what might work. I bet they'd sell to carnies, and be safer than just about any other carnival thrill ride ever made.

If it's inflatable, even falling down shouldn't hurt too much. You'd be able to walk in any direction without having to worry about whether or not there will be something there to catch your foot. You'll notice hamsters never seem to have that problem. :)

Obviously there would need to be a way to get in and out of the sphere quickly (zipper perhaps, or even just a crack that seals upon full inflation -- let some air out and it re-opens), and it would need to be easily hoseable for the inevitable spew, sweat, and maybe blood. Some klutz is going to fall down and catch the weapon right in the nose, you just know it.

If concerns about ventilation and visual flaws prove too much, you go back to the cumbersome headset I guess, since you could then use a heavily perforated ball and nobody would care.

Mal-2

The real prize is not the 10M purse, but the tourists that will follow. Some estimates are that the global market is in the billions. Several studies have been done indicating that people would spend 10k-100k for a trip, among people financially able to pay that.

I look forward to the day when a flight to space is a mundane vacation activity for rich people, right there next to hang-gliding rides and zorbing. Of course orbital is much harder, but the X-prize lays the first brick on that path.

-- Bob

/me gasps!

Do you have any idea how freaky it is to be looking at all this stuff when you stumble across this picture, and realize it was taken outside your fucking job? You almost gave me a heart attack. ;)

Triv

This looks uncannilly similiar to pictures of the Zorb

This looks uncannilly similiar to pictures of the Zorb

Woohoo! It's the world's first virtual Zorb!

--Kai
--slashsuckATvegaDOTfurDOTcom

http://www.zorb.com/

Definitely on my list.

I can see the infomercial already: "Hello, I'm Patrick McGoohan. Today, I'd like to introduce Zorb...."
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