Slashdot Mirror
Maverick Rocketeers Pursue Space Access
Mad.Scientist writes "This article at Space.com is about mavericks who are trying to lessen the cost of going into space. One of the companies, Armadillo Aerospace, is founded by John Carmack, who is also a founder of Id Software, and the brain behind games such as Doom or Quake. I just have to say, godspeed to all." Carmack is only one of the people mentioned in this story, but see our previous story for more on Carmack's rocketry habit.
id software just get their hands into everything don't they? What next- doom 2000 in space?
(And, by the way, FIRST POST from a logged-in high karma user where the post is on-topic!)
the armadillo aerospace site is full of MPG videos.. low and high bandwidth versions.
;)
this will be the fastest slashdotting in history
Then all they would need is booster rockets to put it orbit.
that would be way cheaper than anything NASA is doing.
Heck, NASA should just buy a few of those at 6 mil a pop!
Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
It's more like a suped up amateur rocketry club.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Private Industry should be allowed into space...imagine if the computer industry had worked on space travel---we'd already been to Mars and our space ship wouldn't be as old as my grandfather =)
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Interested in AI? MACR
What does John Carmack actually know about getting a ship into space. He might be an incredible programmer, but how well does it translate into space travel?
Heck, NASA should just buy a few of those at 6 mil a pop!
You forgot the $4 billion to make it space-worthy. The Russian shuttles are rusting piles of sub-standard garbage cheaply copied from the American shuttle!
I knew someone who used to be very into rocketry. For hardcore people you have to go to these planned launches where the airspace over the site is reserved. Otherwise they might damage planes flying overhead.
Very cool if you ask me.
'Invented' (for the most part, the first person shooter
Continually evolved the capabilities of realism in computer games
Created the base for so many great games to run on (Quake3)
Im sure, if there is a way to get private individuals into space cheaply, carmack will find a way.
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
Is this a violation of the DMCA? Hacking into space must be stopped!
Damn... There goes my karma.
And since the Mad.Scientist server seems to be down...
PHOENIX, ARIZONA -- There's no need to wait for big-ticket, big-money space programs to secure the public right of entry into Earth orbit, says a group of maverick rocketeers. A community of upstart startups is convinced that there is more than one way to create cheap access to space.
Their offerings? Huge balloon platforms anchored at the boundary of air and space to handle traffic to and from Earth orbit; passenger space travel as a booming business thanks to sleek, quick-to-turn-around vehicles that operate in rapid response, FedEx-like fashion. Imagine free-fall family outings courtesy of suborbital space planes that regularly depart from sprawling spaceports.
Moving forward
All these radical ideas have germinated beyond the bureaucratic snarl of government and aerospace industry officialdom, with many of the designers and engineers bringing their hopes and hardware to Space Access '02, held here April 25-27, and sponsored by the Space Access Society (SAS).
"Frankly, the reason new things are happening is pressure from the bottom," said Henry Vanderbilt, head of the SAS and chief coordinator of the meeting. Just like rocket thrust, reactive pressure has begun from the bottom up, he said, a force created by private groups who are forming an exclusive, sky-high alliance.
"These people have flown rockets, recovered them, refueled them, and have flown them again. We're not talking model rockets here, but rockets having complex controls, liquid-fueled and so on. It's an expanding club," Vanderbilt said.
However, it has not all been smooth sailing for the always cash-starved private rocket outfits.
Several entrepreneurial rocket projects have gone awry. A number of efforts have folded completely, spending millions of dollars in the process without a contrail to show for themselves. Other groups are riding on financial fumes or have altered their space business strategy altogether.
Some rocketeers blame the marketplace. Some blame the government. Some blame the rocket gods. Nevertheless, there is an undeniable passion radiating from do-it-yourself space access groups.
"We all thought we would be a lot further than this 10 years go, but at least we're moving forward," Vanderbilt said.
Wal-Mart of space
"Look at the space shuttle," says John Powell, president and founder of JP Aerospace of Rancho Cordova, California. "I see a billion-dollar biplane. Something went wrong along the way. People are convinced it is rocket science. That it takes a big government program and superman astronauts to fly at a cost of millions of dollars."
Powell points out that he and many others are busily working in the trenches looking for alternatives. Everyone is hungry to break the rules. "If somebody pulls it off, everything keeping us out of access to space is going to crumble away. It's just an illusion," he said.
JP Aerospace is focusing money, time and talent on fabricating a microsatellite booster, as well as balloon platforms that soar to the outskirts of the atmosphere.
"It's kind of our playground," Powell noted, detailing recent flights of the Dark Sky Station - a five-armed balloon platform capable of transporting payloads high above Earth. Still-larger balloon platforms are on the drawing boards. Envisioned is a huge, piloted, free-floating atmospheric launch pad from which outgoing rockets streak into orbit, later returning to the high-flying complex.
"We want to be the Wal-Mart of space, not the LockMart [Lockheed Martin] of space," Powell emphasized. "We are America's other space program," he said.
Neat is a commodity
A leading do-it-yourselfer is John Carmack, perhaps better known in computer game circles as a founder of id software, and the brain behind such PC action games as Doom and Quake. But he also heads Armadillo Aerospace of Dallas, Texas and a group intent on building vehicles that transport people to the edge of space.
Personally bankrolling his space company, Carmack reported that good progress is being made and he expects to spend upwards of a $1 million on a craft that propels three people on a suborbital jaunt. In working up to the vehicle, the software sage and volunteers have been building and launching a series of inexpensive, small rocket platforms, shot into the air on hydrogen peroxide-fueled engines.
"I'm a big proponent of little experiments," Carmack emphasized.
Sometimes those experiments work. Sometimes they crash.
"The truth is we learn more from one crash than people can learn from months and months of simulation," Carmack said. "The challenges of rocket science have been mythologized out of all proportion to their true difficulty," he added, and that constructing, testing and flying rockets is not as expensive as people think.
The platform design -- eventually to be flown by an onboard pilot -- has recently evolved to include rotor blades. In the crosshairs of Carmack and his rocket mates is demolishing a climb-to-altitude record now held by a Russian jet pilot. Launching passengers, first to suborbital heights and later into orbit is a goal of Armadillo Aerospace.
"I plan on making money off this. I believe that if it's neat to me, it will likely be neat to other people. And neat is a commodity...you can make money off neat," Carmack said.
KISS and tell technology
At the Experimental Rocket Propulsion Society (ERPS), the philosophy of choice is Keep It Simple Scientists, or KISS for short.
Founded in 1993, the society is based in the San Jose area and researches high-density storable propellant combinations. Single-stage-to-orbit rocketry is under study, as is another society venture, the Private Rocket to Orbit Tiny Objects (PROTO).
ERPS is developing reusable rocket technology, including designs that take off and land vertically under control of an on-board computer. Using off-the-shelf model aircraft parts, the society's GizmoCopter Project tests gyroscopes, accelerometers and computer software necessary for vertical takeoff, vertical landing rockets.
Randall Claque, vice president of ERPS, said their KISS rocket was flown twice within three hours in early April. That shows the society is on the right track in adopting the credo: "Build a little, test a little".
Reliability and reusability in rocket designs, he said, is central to reaching low Earth orbit in an affordable and routine manner.
Can-do competence
Also showing their rocket wares at last month's SAS get-together was XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, California. This young startup organization is staffed by a band of nonconformist tinkerers, resolute in cranking out safe, reliable and reusable rocket engines and rocket-powered vehicles.
Already taking flight is XCOR's EZ-Rocket, a souped-up airplane outfitted with rocket motors.
"We're showing that rocket engines are easy to operate, and that they are safe, attainable, reliable and reusable, just like a jet engine," said XCOR's Aleta Jackson. "We stand behind our product, but not when the engine's firing," she said.
Jackson underscored the company's can-do competence. "One running rocket engine is better than one PowerPoint talk," she said.
Although guarded in revealing all their future plans, XCOR officials see the company's next generation vehicles matched to the suborbital market place: Science experimenters and tourists alike can benefit by free-fall for-a-fee rides. Furthermore, an XCOR reusable suborbital craft, they explained, can boost to height a toss-away upper stage that then blasts a microsatellite into Earth orbit.
"We are not the answer...we're an answer to getting into space," Jackson said.
Icebreaker market
Several private rocket groups are taking up space in Oklahoma.
There, the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority is offering tax credits to like-minded space transportation companies. JP Aerospace and Armadillo Aerospace, for instance, have set up operations at the Oklahoma Spaceport, the former Clinton-Sherman Air Base, in the town of Burns Flat.
Given lots of ground and open air space, the Oklahoma Spaceport is catering to clientele wanting to test fly their space hardware.
A recent addition to those using the Oklahoma Spaceport is Pioneer Rocketplane of Solvang, California.
Mitchell Burnside Clapp, founder and president of Pioneer Rocketplane, said his firm has reconfigured an earlier space plane design. They see suborbital passenger travel as a potential "icebreaker market" for space. A way to chip away at that market, he continued, is by way of the company's still-in-the-making four-seater fighter-sized Pioneer XP craft.
Turbulent times
Clapp, as did others attending Space Access '02, wax and wane as to what space markets can be serviced, or propelled into being by far less-expensive access to space.
Pioneer Rocketplane, like other entrepreneurial access to space groups, have gone through turbulent times.
"The year 2001 was hardly a space odyssey," Clapp said. "The idea that we seemed to have decades ago that the sky was going to be dark with all kinds of space stuff...it just didn't happen," he said.
"We were wrong about the size and scope of the projected market," Clapp said.
For one, the hype over ringing the Earth with constellations of low Earth orbiting telecommunication satellites, then maintaining those satellite networks, did not materialize. As that market disintegrated, so too did the hopes of private rocketeers to build and offer low-cost space transportation.
However, two other markets look promising as well. Promotions and sponsorships -- flying corporate logos and products, for example -- is a moneymaker. So too is microgravity research and Earth observation investigations done during suborbital runs of their space plane, Clapp said.
High-rollers
For the time being, locating venture capital for space may take a spiritual advisor. Thanks to the multi-billion dollar Iridium satellite debacle and investors losing major bucks, finding wellsprings of free-flowing cash isn't easy.
"Iridium has hurt. There's no doubt about it," said investor Paul Hans of P. Hans & Company in Scottsdale, Arizona. "The market for satellites has been far, far, far overestimated. Nobody looks at that as being a realistic market anymore. That does not play well," he said.
Hans believes that one likely driver for the entire space industry is the tourism market. "Right now, the Russians are more capitalist about this than we are...because they need the money," he said.
Added Joseph Pistritto of Belmont, California, an investor in several high-tech areas, including space: "The vast majority of venture capitalists aren't very adventuresome. What's needed is an 'adventure' capitalist."
Pistritto suggested that the venture capital world doesn't have a clue about what's going on in access to space and budding markets. However, matching investors with the longer time horizons required for a return-on-investment in space is still promising, he said.
"It is possible to find money," Pistritto said, likening private space projects to the time horizons acceptable within the pharmaceutical industry. Real high, real fast, and real often
The good news from the assembly of hot shot rocket groups that attended Space Access '02 is that econo-class space flight may truly be on the horizon.
Meeting organizer, Henry Vanderbilt, summed up the three-day gathering by identifying a theme he felt had emerged.
"Building a place to stand", Vanderbilt told SPACE.com. "The various low-cost launch startups are getting into position to move fast. They'll make their move when investment conditions and existing launch markets heat up again. Also, they will be building the means to address some of the exciting new markets opening up, not the least of which is space tourism," he said.
It is the belief of a corps of 21st century crusaders that getting up into space requires less of a down payment than ever before. There's been a reduction in development time and risk to build vehicles able to offer routine, cheap access to space. Lastly, it appears that a flourishing of non-traditional space markets is near at hand, Vanderbilt said. "All this seems to be converging on a spot where the business case for these ventures makes sense," he said.
Over the decades, pushing spacecraft into orbit has primarily meant taking the "disintegrating totem pole" approach, said Clapp of Pioneer Rocketplane. Critically needed are true spaceships that fly "real high, real fast, and real often," he said.
At days end, it remains the thrill of space flight that stirs the soul, Clapp added. "It's almost as if we all share this religion...this enthusiasm for doing something in space. It's a passion that people who are very religious, I think, would understand."
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
Does it come with a BFG 2000?
Why bother with all these? why don't the quake guys just enter one of their own cheat codes such as "fly" which will get them off the ground
From the article: This looks a bit too dangerous. Although the guy strapped into it looks to be having a jolly time.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
I can't wait to see the next generation rocket launcher in Doom III. Maybe it will be able to launch rockets into orbit?
It is good to see stories like this. Since the government (and it doesn't matter which party it is) doesn't seem really all that interested in anything other than their "International" Space Station, it will take private sector people to get us where we should be in terms of the advancement of space flight.
;)
And to see that there is at least one geek involved (Mr. Carmack) makes it all the more reassuring. Of course, I suspect that they're all geeks, but I don't know the credentials of anyone else in the story.
libertarianswag.com
Seriously, look at how many "rebels" have made their way into our history and into our hearts: Socrates, Jesus, Gandhi, Ford (the auto-maker, not the president), Darwin. The list goes on. At every major step in mankind's evolution, there has been someone who smacks us in the face and shows us something new.
It's painful.
But where would we be without it?
Maybe Linus, RMS...today's rabblerousers?
Think about it.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
When Doom crashed it was just an inconvienience, but this...
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
This must be why the 'Rocket Launcher' has always been the weapon of choice of multiplayer gamers in quake
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
Carmack actually thinks hes qualified to do what hes doing? Hes a computer programmer!!! a GAME programmer at that!
This is just funny.
It would be diffrent if a scientist with a PHD in physics were doing this, but john carmack?! How many off you would put your life in the hands of john carmack?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Whatever happened to that guy who was going to try and launch himself? I remember them talking about moving the launch to Mexico because he might not be able to get permission for the launch from the FAA... unfortunately that's about all I can remember at the moment. :(
Bryan
They will never actually put a man into space.
I dont think anyone is stupid enough to risk their life using the technology of game programmer john carmack!
I mean his quake software was so buggy, it left a backdoor open where anyone could remotely take over someones computer.
Lets not forget carmack knows absolutely nothing about real world physics, his games dont use REAL physics, sure he may know some calculus, but does this make him qualified to produce a rocket to launch a man into space?
First I want to see some simulations of the launch, I want him to find the most aerodynamic design for the craft so it doesnt break up into peices or burn up into dust. I want him to also tell me how hes going to manage to do this in a safe way yet be cheaper than NASA. NASA is expensive for a reason, they DONT make alot of mistakes!
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Anyone remember the Rotary Rocket? It was another venture in the same vein, only NASA started giving away the market they were trying to sell to. A real shame, too, because they had some really, really nifty ideas. They even had a test flight before they suddenly found themselves bankrupt.
Googling for Rotary Rocket leads me here, but there is, I'm sure, some better source.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I don't know if you follow this kinda tihng, but dozens of comapnies have been working on this kind of thing, with very little success. Few have even gotten to a semi-working proto-type. Also, note that there isn't a whole lot that has prevented companies from using space in the past...the reason no private space industries have really taken off is the massive cost.
Carmack is god, he is just trying to get home.
Gerald Bull who shot to fame as the inventor of the Iraqi Super Gun did a lot of work on constant pressure launch systems - enormous cannons with explosives positioned along the barrel to keep the pressure behind the projectile constant for the full launch length.
Estimated cost to LEO? $1 per pound.
Because the shock was distributed along the acceleration, maximum G force on the load was 40G: fine for food and fuel and most construction supplies.
You can read more about his work at Federation of American Scientists Supergun pages, [2], and at NASA.
There really is more than one way to do it.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
I always thought this was an interesting idea. Here's a link to some pics of rotary rocket. The rocket uses helicopter-like blades to slow re-entry and thus is it a reusable rocket. Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt beginning of last year. However, I have heard a rumour that someone has bought up the company and plans on reviving the technology.
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
Hes not incredible, the programmers working at Los Alamos, MIT, NASA etc, These guys do SERIOUS coding with REAL physics, mathematicians make sure everything is precise.
Game programming is more difficult than application programming, but its not in the same league as scientific programming. You need to know your shit to write a simulation of a nuclear bomb explosion, or of your rocket.
Perhaps the use of a genetic algorithm could be used to help find the most aerodynamic design, but he would still need very PRICISE statistics, math, etc and a super computer or cluster to actually do this.
I think carmack knows his games, and he knows how to write a nice engine, but honestly, I dont think he knows what hes getting into with space stuff.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
We've lots and lots of reusable liquid fuel rocket videos on our website www.xcor.com as well as a new photo gallery and redesigned engine projects page. Have a look if you haven't been there in a while or been there at all. :) We make reliable rocket hardware and rocket powered aircraft. There's some good video of the EZ-Rocket flying in the Space Access presentation video (the conference that the the space.com article was about) as well.
Score: -1, Pseudointellectual Wanker
And I should know---we can smell our own!
I'll take the proven achiever every time.
"...founded by John Carmack, who is also a founder of Id Software, and the brain behind games such as Doom or Quake."
/. :)
You learn something new every day on
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
The main problem is that chemical rockets dont have the thrust to weight ratios to get into space cheaply. sure..that duct tape and baling wire model might eventually attain sub orbital capability but thats afar cry from lobbing tonnes of material up there to construct lasting structures.
what we really need are fusion or fission engines based on cheap, clean thermonuclear reactions. Theres significant engineering to be done to build a robust nuclear engine to get us to space with the required cost and thrust to weight ratios.
of course theres the environmental and other hazards (greenpeace supporters disrupting launches? terrorists blowing up nuclear engines?) to consider when you have regular nuclear lifts into space.
Was made from an old tuna can. -Dilbert (who used something else, and hates going last in those brag sessions)
For those that don't know, John Carmack has a Slashdot account, and is known to post here occasionally. Check out his user page.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Maybe they should hook up with him, I know he has been workign on shooting himself into space for some time. Perhaps the technology swap could help one another fullfill their goals.
carmack is not a computer programmer. Programming the computer can not be his goal. This should be clear to anyone who has read his code. I believe Mr. Carmack programs as a means to fulfilling his vision. You will find very little if anything in there that is done for the art of programming or to fulfill anyone's vision of how programming should be done.
What he does, and brilliantly, is bring his vision to reality.
I say he should follow his vision, where ever it goes and regardless what anyone tells him he can and can not do.
And no. I would not put my life in the hands of anyone's vision of a rocket ship. Show me the real rocket and then we can talk.
I should disclaim... I have never met the man, but I have read his code.
1a. Bill Gates is the greatest used software salesman in the history of the entire universe.
1b. John Carmack is a verry intelligent computer scientist.
2a. Bill Gates bought someone else's oprating system, slapped "Microsoft" on the box, and sold it to IBM.
2b. John Carmack was in part of creating the world's first computer program that had a 1st-person visual, Wolfenstein3D.
Yet ID Software has no where near as much cash-flow as Microsoft, does that grant Microsoft to invent shit that flies into space any more or less than ID Software? NO!! It's supposed to be a free-enterprise market and they are both equal to create goods and services for profit! It's what keeps nations strong!
Free enterprise means people should be allowed to join together and have a common goal. NASA wasn't the joining of USA citizens in competing with Russia. NASA was the creation of the US Government.
I'm sure that we could all agree that Bill Gates, John Carmack, Billy Bob, and Joe User should be allowed to create their own rocketry club and have access to space. Government fascism keeps people out of space and average and extra-ordinary people are forced to work and submit technology to corrupt governments just to pursue a career in space travel.
In this world, it isn't realy the most financialy rich people that succeed, but it is in how smart you are.
I saw this piece on TV about the Ultima
creator living in a medieval castle mockup,
and now it's Cormack, after tuning the
ubergeek Ferrari, trying to fly to space
by himself on a budget...
when the stuff they sold us only keeps us
in a virtual world, replacing all the REAL
things the 60's scifi writers had promised.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
This article keeps talking about space flight as if it were something that should be cheap, that brilliance is the only thing keeping us out of orbit.
We wish.
Space flight isn't like air flight, where a couple of bicycle repairmen from Ohio could study the basic principles and build a device on their own. Air flight can be done with an ordinary gasoline engine and the right kits. Goddard developed the first successful rockets with a combination of basic physics and lots of chemistry, but those weren't manned or orbital.
On the other hand, sending a man into space for the first time took the combined financial and intellectual resources of an entire superpower. It still does, not because the principles are too advanced but because the raw materials are hideously expensive and because the margin for error is enormous. If you're trying to fly yourself into orbit, you damned well better have your engineering right because after a certain point, even parachutes won't save you from a miscalculation.
About the only thing that could make orbital commutes cost-effective would be a successful space elevator, a tether between a geosynchronous station and the ground along which cargo and people could climb and descend. High-tech planes won't do it, rockets won't do it, all of those take too much money and have too much risk. An elevator would have an initial cost and then be relatively cheap to run and re-run. And once you had one, you could send up parts for a second one again and again.
But I'm not holding out hope for a $200 ticket on a space shuttle anytime soon.
...they will just do a rocket jump.
---- Just another spud server.
To quote from the website mentioned above:
He lived an unusual life, to be sure, working for various shady governments, mostly in a simple effort to make his vision reality. His work for Iraq, however, apparently cost him his life. He was assasinated in 1990.
Bull's dream of cheap satellite launches was left unfulfilled. And so the world still pushes all that heavy fuel into space.
He was a true hacker.
If it would be possible to build a "super spud gun" using PVC fittings, etc - in this similar manner? Get a long piece of PVC, attach booster chambers using sewage drain "down spout" connectors, a load of JBWeld, some sensors and electronic ignition, etc.
Maybe make the thing out of steel and weld all of the connections - would be an interesting porject for "backyard" high-altitude experiments.
Possibly even "x-prize" level experiments...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I feel sorry for the flight testers that work for Carmack's company.
Ya know what, Stuart, I like you. You're not like the other people here in the trailer park...
If you really want a big gun then you want a Ram Accelerator. It will subject a projectile to about 25,000 G's of acceleration.
The beauty of it is its efficiency. The fuel (gas) is stored in the barrel. The projectile is fired to have it travel fast enough to cause its shock wave to ignite the gas in the tube and therefore propel it even more. Basically, it is just ahead of the detonation wave it creates.
The University of Washington has a good bit of info about them.
Cool stuff.
Earth to tps12: Eve never existed.
Doesn't anyone remember Daikatana? How Quake was supposed to be set in an Aztec environment? How, after Carmack left id, they published a press release saying how they will no longer be issuing grand pronouncements about unreleased titles?
..Might be a 'game' programmer. He might be a nut. He might end up blasting himself into oblivion.
But he has money. A lot of it, and a rather wonderful interest in space.
We need more people like him who have the funds to casually toss around into stuff like this, because the government sure as hell won't bring us any closer to getting the average joe into space. (Look at the stink Nasa made with Tito, a freakin' rocket scientist, for crying out loud!)
Up until a few years ago, NASA's Space Shuttle Orbiter was powered by 5 computers. Each one of these ran at 1Mhz, and at best was comparable to your 8088. It was a different processor, but that should give you a clue. 3 computers ran at a time, having primary control over everything. Two were on stand-by. For every event that they controlled, there was an "election" process. Three computers decided what to do, then they'd compare their result. If the three computers didn't agree, all 5 computers would decide if that computer was faulty, then test again.
:)
:)
All this on a 1Mhz machine.
Did I fail to mention the mass storage? Tape drives.
He doesn't need a supercomputer. ID games are very intensive and track more game variables than the Orbiter has sensors.
Even the ground-based equipment would be better on a modern PC than what was used for the original flights. Microsoft's flight simulator takes into account all the flight variables. If a Microsoft product can do it on a low-end PC, I'm sure a well written piece of software could do it better.
I'd be happy to fly on the first flight of a civilian spacecraft, especially if it wasn't designed like a giant pick-up truck (i.e., the design of the NASA craft.)
Judging someone's programming abilities by where they work is not quite fair. I know someone who programs for satellites. I program for web sites. After several discussions between us, it's agreed that I'm the better programmer. Funny that, I don't agree.. But my work isn't in aerospace, mine keeps Internet servers alive.
I'd love to take the input of sensor variables, and make control decisions.
Anyone looking for a programmer to send up on a civilian space flight, be sure to contact me.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
that Carmack can't HIRE the talent he needs for this, even if he doesn't have it himself (and you seem to be having trouble getting that game physics aren't real physics not because game programmers are dumb but because real physics can be too much CPU work ...)
Er, that was Romero, methinks, not Carmack.
And I never heard the thing about Quake in an Aztec environment.....
Carmack has a fairly high say-to-do ratio...
RMS I still don't know about.
I feel sorry for the flight testers that work for Carmack's company.
Don't. He's using sandbags and the like as "flight test" payloads - and that's with the rockets not going more than several feet off the ground (so far, though that may soon change). Good thing, too, since he's aced a few of them.
This is the "Before", you should the "After".
We know you're trying to drum up some traffic using cheap tricks.
If Carmack posts, you know every game site on the web will link to slashdot, giving slashdot a 'quad damage' to its server stats and ad revenue.
Show me the real rocket and then we can talk.
g
Low bandwidth: http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/sff_low.mpg and http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/sas02_low.mpg
High bandwidth: http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/sff_high.mpg and http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/sas02_high.mp
And just to plug my own group's rockets: http://cube.erps.org/movies/.
Going into space is easy for John Carmack, all he has to do is jump and shoot a rocket down to the ground, its simple (game) physics. But his health must be at about 200% and have full armor on...
Hmmm, I have 5 mod pts, its time to metamod, and on top of that I have to meta-metamod? When do I get to read slashdot?
Oh for the love of all that's holy, how did this fundy-whacko, Linux fanboy, fetid, pandering cloying disgusting mass of utter horseshit get modded up to a level where I can see it? Moderators, do your jobs!
Since then, they've made some real progress in control and consistancy, so I would expect a manned lander flight in the next few months. They tend to multitask so that they have some long term goals to aim for while achieving something meaningful on a regular basis.
science is a religion
Ever play one of the games created by ID? Sure it's just a game, but there's a shitload of physics in that tight, solid code. Take a look at the way a grenade arcs and bounces, this simulates reality almost perfectly. The human brain is excellent at picking up on inconsistencies between the game model and reality and I have never heard anyone complain about the physics being off (of course some of the special abilities are made up but that falls under artistic license). You have to know your newtonian physics pretty well to get it to look that realistic. So, does he know his physics? Obviously he does. He also knows a great deal about testing and hardware and learns very fast.
Cat
If your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like nails.
I am helping a hardware vendor optimize the E3 build of Doom right now, but I'll make a pass of replys and comments later on tonight...
(yes, the Id net connection is slashdotted at the moment)
John Carmack
Screw Bull, there were many other ways for him to keep his research and projects alive than by whoring himself to Hussein.
.... This guy was begging to be assasinated, and I am glad that someone tossed him the alms he was asking for.
His lack of morals, judgment, his illegal selling of arms to South Africa, his building of a delivery mechanism (artillery pieces, supergun, improved scuds) for weapons of mass destruction for Hussein,
"We" (high-power rocketeers; I've never done it personally) have to arrange well in advance for a FAA waiver. Lots of paperwork, sometimes met with glassy stares or even hostility. Some FAA people are great, others clueless.
Sometimes you get a short window in which to fly, or a low ceiling. (e.g., 5000'.) The group I fly with now is having a launch next weekend. They had a waiver for the whole weekend lined up, but they've been given two no-fly windows each day because jets from a (relatively) nearby airbase are doing low-altitude exercises in the area.
Even if we get a waiver, there are pilots who ignore the "Notice to Airmen" posted at the airport. When a low-flying plane gets within a mile or so, and isn't heading away, we have to hold up launches for a bit.
Stefan
At least that is what I read the first time...
wtf? He is a rockabilly?
Then I really payed attention...
Silly me.
Funny, I don't recall hearing that Slashdot is uniformly Christian/Creationist. In fact, I would hazard a guess that Slashdot has much more diversity in religion than the general US population. Why don't you keep your religious bias inside your religious community? It might be welcome there. There are few enough females in IT/CS/whatever for someone to start spewing about Adam and Eve on Slashdot.
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
science is a religion
Retard, assclown, goon, fuckwit, hasbro, funhat.
That was cathartic.
Isn't it about time our friend HanzoSan got the "Troll" ratings he deserves for this thread? Or are you guys all out to lunch?
I don't think it was until after the automobile was mass produced that gasoline was so cheap and parachutes could usually be counted on to work. Besides, now we have more computational power than existed in the whole world at the time of early space flight in packages that weigh less than a pound and sensors to go along with them. One of the early (and continuing) problems with space flight was control and designing the parts. We also have 3D CAD tools that run on a PC rather than taking teams of engineers years to draw up and analysis tools for looking at data that far surpass anything available even 30 years ago. To top it off, we have research available as public archives detailing what various governments spent billions to find out.
With all that going for them, I think we'll see private space flight within a decade.
science is a religion
My eyes have flitted over this story on the front page, and every time I see it, I misread the headline as "Maverick Puppeteers Rock Space Access."
That is a story I would like to see, though.
Back on Aug 02 of last year, I asked Carmack about his future goals the last time this came up. His answers were very enlightening, and I encourage people to check them out.
I would be curious to hear from him if any of his goals have changed, either more or less ambitiously.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I had the occasion, several years ago, to meet a slightly deranged maniac named Bob Truax who had built a 40' rocket that supposedly was capable of reaching orbital flight. He had designed it so it was capable of carrying a payload of about 100 kilos into a low orbit but his main problems included access to the nessesary fuels, and finding a "Little Person" who was as deranged as he was. The available cockpit space was less than 30 cubic feet, about the sixe of a medium sized refrigerator. He called his machine the Volksrocket, and it was ready for launch back in 1981 I think. I have wondered what ever happened to this guy....
-- Defenestrate Microsoft!
Is it painful to be that uptight?
Sheesh.
Hrmm...looking at the URL, it could easily be this.
Sorry, I couldn't resist (:
Man, this is really funny! Anyone else have more jokes like this?
Holy shit, bitch! If someone mentions King David or Budah or some shit would you get all pissy? What's the big deal? How can you take a poop with an ass that tight?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Is anyone else reminded of the Plank from Michael Flynn's Firestar when reading this ? Only it's not a megacorporation doing this, but some private individuals... Which makes it even cooler :-)
>|<*:=
The 1 million lb payload rocket is the Sea Dragon. This is the archetypal "Big Dumb Booster". It's never flown, though...
Energy: time to change the picture.
Oh, look at the mindless moralists...
The US basically collected every Nazi scientist
in 1945 and you have the gall to give lectures?
This "they are good if they work for us, evil if they work for the 'bad guys'" atitude is inane and the product of watching too much of The Agency.
As for Israelis, almost every one of their presidents has been a terrorist responsible for the murders of everyone from a Britsh diplomat to innocent people who happen to be of the wrong religion.
Unfortunately there is a double standard in both cases which is so bias that it brings all possible debate to a Rush Limbaugh of level.
"The image we have of our enemies is but a mere reflection. Both are capable of great evil.
The falsely rightheous thinks himself above."
(some old Chinese dude)
Holy batman!
You mean... the world has been changed as a result of the actions of extraordinary people?
Jeez, all of my textbooks had it wrong... and here I was in school, memorizing the names of millions of peasants of feudal Europe, thinking that every one of them was brilliant and changed the world. Hmmph, I guess the educational system is in shambles. Wow, you've given me something to think about, buddy! I thought I could get famous and endeared by becoming the picturesque Joe Six-Pack. Back to the drawing board, I guess.
Get this f***ing troll out of here!!!
Space is not empty, it just keeps crashing.
Looking at that picture I wouldn't want to take the Armadillo space craft into low Earth orbit but the idea of hovering around my neighborhood on one of those Hydrogen Peroxide rigs would be fun! Weeeeeee.
sure the tech is great and in the spirit of DIY. but couldnt someone put a bomb/germs on the reasonably successful homemade rocket and instead of launching into space, program it to fall somewhere...? think of the possibilities. i think the govts will step in soon as they reach beta.
You are an ignorant asshole. Russian hardware is usually much better, cheaper, easier to maintain, and more robust. If I recall it was a laughable explosion on an american space shuttle that humbled you assholes first. Fuck off and shutup yankee pig.
We did high speed rotor testing at the 100 acres today
Tigger (bouncing on his tail): Heya, what's with this big spinny thing? Hoo-hoo-hoo-*bzzt-splat*
Pooh: Oh bother...
to all you who say that private space flight can't happen. I point to Burt Rutan (www.scaled.com) of Voyager fame (not the show, the airplane that few around the world nonstop on one tank of gas in 1986). In the avation world this guy is a god. If Burt says,"I'm going after the X Prize." He'll do it.
Who do you think will win this race
guy that wrote a really cool computer game
or
guy that had airfoil designs rejected by NASA because "they're to cheap to be any good."
"You can see I know very little about pimp policy." George McGovern.
Yes, the subject is a troll, but I've actually been waiting for an opportunity to get opinions from the /. community on the Biefield-Brown Effect. Surely some of you have heard of this:
IANAPhysicist, so maybe some more enlightened opinions will prevail. It just sounds intriguing.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Ask HanzoSan. He seems to have definite opinions on the matter.
Well said. It is my opinion that NASA and the govt have not exactly gone out of their way (lip service aside) to help anyone develop this technology, because it is not in 'the national interest' to allow these technologies to be controlled by anyone but them. People are not going to be allowed to build their own ICBMs. The small groups doing this work are quite capable of building a working suborbital rocket on a shoestring budget in the next few years, but most of them will go bust trying to meet govt regulations on securing such technologies, which will amount to more than the cost per launch. All of which is a criminal shame, to be sure. But realistically, how do you think the military will react?
It's called ROCKET JUMPING, and it's performed by firing the rocket into a surface and bouncing from the propulsion, not flying ON the rocket. :)
I guess you haven't played enough Quake
^_^
Microsoft has proven this all too well.
(* Whatever you call them, rebels have defined our history from Day One. The first to rebel against conventional wisdom? Eve. We're still recovering from the fallout from that ordeal.
Seriously, look at how many "rebels" have made their way into our history and into our hearts *)
The best role that mavericks fill is taking risks that "rational" people wouldn't. Most mavericks fail, but the lucky few that succeed are what changes everything.
One of the Wright brothers' was seriously injured trying to perfect an upgrade to their designs.
BTW, does anybody have any web material about the space dude who had a hard time persuading the early moon program to use the randeveus approach? Without that, they would have needed a huuuuuuge rocket.
Table-ized A.I.
(* after a certain point, even parachutes won't save you from a miscalculation. *)
Why not? If you have a space-suit and a strong parachute, why can't that save you?
The atmosphere thickness increases gradully. Thus, the drag on the chute should be relatively continious, no?
Perhaps space would be cheaper if they perfected the "space parachute" first.
Table-ized A.I.
(* I've seen someone on the web which has made the BFPG10k (big fucking potato gun10k). I can't find the site right now, but they were blowing up watermelons with potatoes.*)
Movie Idea: "Private Gallager"
Table-ized A.I.
(* You are an ignorant asshole. Russian hardware is usually much better, cheaper, easier to maintain, and more robust. If I recall it was a laughable explosion on an american space shuttle that humbled you assholes first. Fuck off and shutup yankee pig.*)
Has the russian shuttle ever flown in space?
It is true, however, that Soviet space equipment has proven itself to be generally reliable. It seems to have the ability to be more "self servicable" than US counterparts. McGiver type astronauts love it.
Anyhow, perhaps such a shuttle could serve as an emergency backup vehicle or something.
Table-ized A.I.
correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't the Buran irreparably damaged in early testing (much as one of the american shuttles was damaged) and thus left unsuitable for use as an orbital vehicle? Also, the Buran is considerably larger than its american counterparts (yet of surprisingly similar design) so it would take more than a couple of the standardized american booster rockets to place it into orbit. My point here is that simply purchasing the buran and using it as an orbital vehicle would be impractical if at all possible.
Actualy they allowed a back door to allow anyone to take over the quake server but not the actual machine.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
(* Also, the Buran is considerably larger than its american counterparts (yet of surprisingly similar design) *)
:-)
Probably due to the Vodka cooler alone
Table-ized A.I.