Slashdot Mirror
X Prize Race Heats Up
evenprime writes "Armadillo Aerospace
have already done a drop test, and
Burt Rutan's company Scaled Composites did a
second flight test
of their launch plane/spacecraft combination on July 3. SC haven't posted the results yet, but when they do you will find them
here.
Sadly, PanAero doesn't appear to be doing that well.
Although I like their "Junkyard Wars" technique, it doesn't look
stuffing rockets in the back end of a business jet
will build a legitimate contender."
I don't think I want to be a passenger in that particular entry. Breaking ground is a pretty severe way of landing, in my opinion.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Don't do it. It'll void your warranty.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Three jet aircraft take off. Two jets at either end of a long piece of knicker elastic. The third jet would have the payload of a space rocket attached by a hook to the middle of the knicker elastic. When all three planes have reached their ceiling. The middle plane flies earthwards, the other two planes fly horizontaly in opposite directions, loading the knicker elastic with the mathematical maximum of energy. When this point is reached, the middle plane releases the space rocket. All the energy stored in the knicker elastic will be transfered to the space rocket. How fast would the space rocket be going before it fired its engine, how much fuel would it need to achieve escape velocity?
I am not a mathematician, nor a materials scientist, so I do not know how much energy can be stored in knicker elastic. But I'm sure that it can be released in an effective way to be able to claim the 'X' prize.
I will not die happy if I never see elephants dance the pas de deux. Or human beings achieve true bird like flight. Or humanity starts the herculean task of putting the earth back the way they found it. Come on lads parties over, lets clean the place up, and put all the trees back. I know a place where there is lots of space, lots of room, its very quiet, very clean, no bugs, and twenty four hours a day sunshine. No earthquakes, no typhoons, hurricanes, very few neighbours.
It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet
I believe that Slashdot is the only place where you can hear serious talk about international terrorism and antimatter bombs in the same post.