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Canadian Arrow Taking Applications for Astronauts

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the adventurers-needed dept.

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."

14 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Prize is just at $5 mllion by osullish · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The prize money is just at $5 million, so to make it economically viable to enter this competition your vehicle must be developed for less than that...

    Me thinks thats not gonna be very safe

    --
    It's hard enough to remember my opinions, never mind the reasons for them..
    1. Re:Prize is just at $5 mllion by Bartmoss · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I assume that the success itself is worth far more.

  2. Re:resources by meringuoid · · Score: 4, Insightful
    However I just can't ignore the incredible amount of resources this 'fun' is going to cost. The amount of fules neccesary for one trip is just rediculous (don't give that clean fuel / hydrogen crap as it takes oil / elctrolysis to get the hydrogen in the first place).

    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.
  3. Canadian Secret X-Prize Program by InvaderSkooge · · Score: 5, Funny

    So if I get in, do I get adamantium claws?

    --
    Erik
    YOU ARE SAYING IMPUDENCE TO ME! THAT IS IMPUDENCE!
  4. cut corners on safety by selderrr · · Score: 5, Funny

    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 ?
  5. On safety by m_chan · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  6. Sweeet! by Shafe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. cut corners on safety by isorox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  8. Carmack by halftrack · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Let's hope that the X-Prize foundations 'end of 2004' deadline doesn't inspire people to cut corners on safety."

    Some might, but the seriouse competitors won't (Canadian Arrow is serious, at least with PR and blowing someone up in space, well ...) 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.

    --
    Look a monkey!
  9. Shoulda had a V2 by tinrobot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  10. Ack! JATO's! Don't We Know.. by Myriad · · Score: 5, Funny
    Yipes, don't these people know what happens when you go slapping JATO rockets onto things?

    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'
  11. Nah Re:resources by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 5, Insightful
    However I just can't ignore the incredible amount of resources this 'fun' is going to cost

    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!"
  12. Does anyone else find it fishy... by Peter+T+Ermit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... that the job application requires a non-refundable $75 fee?

  13. Has Mr. Carmack learned nothing by CaffeineAddict2001 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.