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Canadian Arrow Taking Applications for Astronauts
Christian Nally writes "The Canadian Arrow X-Prize team is taking applications for its X Prize attempt. It's going to be a show down between this group and many others including John Carmack's Armadillo. Let's hope that the X-Prize foundations 'end of 2004' deadline doesn't inspire people to cut corners on safety."
Me thinks thats not gonna be very safe
It's hard enough to remember my opinions, never mind the reasons for them..
As any fule know... :-)
If we're postulating mass space tourism, we can probably get away with postulating efficient solar or fusion power to go with it... they're both pipe-dreams hovering somewhere in the technological middle-distance. Then you can have your hydrogen by electrolysis without trouble.
To make space tourism economic, we need to either (a) make it possible to get into orbit using far less energy, or (b) make energy available much more cheaply. So nobody's going up there without some major breakthrough that would massively reduce the resources required.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
So if I get in, do I get adamantium claws?
Erik
YOU ARE SAYING IMPUDENCE TO ME! THAT IS IMPUDENCE!
the ones who do cut corners are likely not te be able to collect their price... they can offcourse imediately apply for darwin award nomination :-)
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Let's hope that the X-Prize foundations 'end of 2004' deadline doesn't inspire people to cut corners on safety.
Unless Lance Bass really gets to go this time. Then, let's not.
"... and very hot during re-entry."
I love vegetarians - some of my favorite foods are vegetarians.
Jeez, you guys are so damn pessimistic. You're missing the whole point. Some teams will spend more than $10 million, the prize, to compete in this project. The objective is to find a cheap and easy way to get to space! Such a fantastic goal! And you all keep whining about safety.
Grow some balls.
Yeah, when columbus set sail the wrong way round the world, he made sure he took every safety precaution.
Safety is very important, but when it reaches a certain point its ridiculous. Attitudes like that will confine us to $10,000/pound low orbit flights for the next 500 years.
How about Pamela Anderson? Zero-G boobs already primed and ready for test flight! Plus she's probably the best-known Canadian world-wide ... I'd suuuuure like to be the guy auditioning all those wannabe asstronauts if she walked in the room.
I'd dim the lights just a touch and in she walks... beautiful delicious Canadian flesh, right there in front of me! The strapless evening-wear would probably burst at that point, and I'd jump her then and there in front of all the lesser dudes on the committee. Oooohh. Powerrrr.
somebody slap me
coffee. i need coffee
True. Several recent articles on space telescopes have commented on the dofficulty of getting rid of waste heat. Viewers generally want to be as cold as possible - obviously infra-red, but is seems tha other sensors benefit from being very cold. But the sun heats it, power supplies, actuators an electronics all generate heat. With no convection or conduction to the environment, there is only radiation left to get rid of the heat - and that isn't very efficient at low temps.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
"Let's hope that the X-Prize foundations 'end of 2004' deadline doesn't inspire people to cut corners on safety."
...) This goes especially for John Carmack and Armadillo. They've stated that their taking it step by step building small first, then build larger things and IIRC their not registered for the $10.000.000 X-Prize contest.
Some might, but the seriouse competitors won't (Canadian Arrow is serious, at least with PR and blowing someone up in space, well
Look a monkey!
The Canadian web site says that an upswing in space tourism will force down the cost of space travel. They use, as an example, the growth of the PC industry and the diminishing cost of hardware. I would love to do it, but I do not see the general public rushing to get launched into space as easily as they walk into Best Buy to get a PC to play Wolfenstein. Also, when I hear the term 'tourism' I think of places to go, different things to do, etc. Other than the trip itself, what is there to do? (Like driving all the way to Wallyworld and not being able to get inside.)
Wow... it's simply an updated V2. I think that's a brilliant idea. Those rockets hit the edge of space almost 60 years ago, so the technology is certainly easy to attain today. Plus, that design is probably more bug-free than something fresh off the drawing boards today.
Sheesh. Some people never learn! :)
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
No.
The fuel cost is very, very low actually; less than $10/lb of payload.
I worked out that if I was to go into space, I'd have to spend about as much fuel putting me there, as my car burns in a year. But unlike my car I ain't doing this every week or even every year. The number of people going into space for the forseeable future is only a few thousand; the number of cars out there are incredibly high, in the hundreds of millions, so the relative environmental impact of rocketry is quite, quite negligible.
And there are plenty of space technologies that have a positive environmental impact. Would the ozone layer hole have been found without satellites? I actually believe that overall, space will have a very significant net positive environmental impact.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"To make space tourism economic, we need to either (a) make it possible to get into orbit using far less energy, or (b) make energy available much more cheaply
This is just wrong. People make a big deal about fuel costs, but that's really the smallest part of the cost of getting into space. If fuel was all that mattered, you'd be able to go to space for maybe a thousand dollars. As it stands, it costs millions. This is because NASA's launchers are fiendishly complicated, and require a tremendous staff of engineers to check, recheck, and replace tens of thousands of components.
Even the cost of the components themselves is dwarfed by the cost of paying 10,000 people for the 6 months that it takes to prep the shuttle for launch.
If we can do away with all this personnel by making the designs simpler, then we will have realized the dream of cheap spaceflight.
( and don't think it's not doable! Companies like Armadillo and XCOR may accomplish this! )
All it takes is nukes and nerves.
... that the job application requires a non-refundable $75 fee?
Why, yes they are: Armadillo at X Prize.
Burt Rutan's entry with "Undisclosed Rocket Power" sounds interesting...
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
from all these years developing Doom and Quake?
Rickety experimental space-craft *always* wind up deserting the occupant on an alien planet infested with demons and high powered weapons.
For the pilots sake, I hope he makes sure to equip every craft with atleast a chainsaw.