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X Prize and John Carmack
Anonymous Coward writes "ABC News is running a story ostensibly about the X Prize but in reality they only talk about John Carmack and his teams efforts to win the prize (or at least compete). Quote: 'Some people have commented that I am trying very hard to make aerospace like software, and that's the truth," he says. "If we looked at what we do in software, if we could only compile and test our program once a year, we'd never get anything done. But that's the mode of aerospace.' "
He should be adding better outdoor support to the DOOM ]|[ engine, not doing this silly rocket business...
I just hope that they value a quality assurance process more then the typical software engineer. In a game like this you would not be able to release version 2.0.
--
Go calculate something
"The competition to build and fly a rocket ship into space and back is heating up as the Jan. 1, 2005, deadline approaches for the X Prize."
Rebuilding large complicated expensive machines is not.
Aerospace like software, eh?
"Crap, the rocket is not ready and the deadline for launch is tomorrow!"
"Bah, launch it anyways and we'll release a patch later!"
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
"Effectively, I stopped buying Ferraris and turbo-charging them and started building rocket ships," Carmack says.
Yeah, I hate it when I have to put off buying Ferraris.
Trolling is a art,
What works great for games might be disatrous in space.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
Programmer: Ooops, wrong condition on the 'if' statement. I'll just reboot the rocket's computer and test again! ... what rocket?
Flight director (emerging from flaming debris): Errr
Carmack says: Some people have commented that I am trying very hard to make aerospace like software, and that's the truth
Unfortunate analogy?
Why not develop and test their spaceship mostly via computer simluation. That's Carmack's strong suit anyway. Besides, I'd love to get my hands on that sort of simulator. Though I'd probably need a beowulf cluster...
Jeepers, I see 10 builds a day fail here for missing components, is that really the paradigm Carmack wants to port to spaceflight?
GNAA recomends anus cheeses eaten while reading slashdot with YACLWB (yet another crappy lunix web browser
"If we looked at what we do in software, if we could only compile and test our program once a year, we'd never get anything done. But that's the mode of aerospace.'" And "Duke Nukem Forever," apparently.
I read the internet for the articles.
soviets: In soviet russia, rockets launch you.
simpsons:
v1:
- ACK!! Protect the queen!
- Which one's the queen?
- I'm the queen!
- No you're not!
v2:
In Rod we trust.
SCO:
Heh...but does Darl want the full licence price for that once / year compile time usage?
HAH! Take that, trolls! Beat ya to it!
Some people have commented that I am trying very hard to make aerospace like software, and that's the truth
Gives a whole new meaning to "blue screen of death", doesn't it?
See, it crashes just like my software. We call it the 'blue sky of death' :D
The challenges, while they evolve, they are not so novel anymore.
How about trying to plug all of Microsoft's security holes?
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
It should be noted that they're only carrying show notes, and that the interview with John Carmack was actually carried out by TechTV's Tech Live, and was run last night at 8 PM EST, and again twice this morning.
It will air again tonight at 6 PM EST.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
"We have liftoff!" == "Excellent!"
"Our trajectory is acceptable for re-entry"=="Accuracy!"
"Our rocket landed, and it's data storage is still intact"=="Perfect!"
* luckyguesser almost dodged John_Cormack's rocket.
The power of Christ compiles you.
A Random Blog
When he says Aerospace Software, he really means adding net jetpacks to Doom and allowing them to be used outside earth's atmosphere... you guys are interpreting this all wrong!
Pls No Negative Modding!
Indeed, conventional rocket design is pretty brute-force. Big engine, hunking mechanical control systems with minimal intelligence.
Given the capabilities of modern IT, it makes much more sense to use software as the core of the system, in the same was as software is the core of a device like the Segway, or the stair-climbing robot, or the telescopes that consist of a thousand small mirrors, not one large one.
Rocket science has not changed significantly since 1950, and needs a rethink. I believe this project is a solid approach that has good chances of succeeding, and if so, will redefine the way we conceive of this kind of engineering project in the future.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Rapid Aerospace Design...would that be a spacecraft built in VB? Yikes!
Can't exactly release early and release often when it comes to stuff like that unless you've got money to literally burn.
"If we looked at what we do in software, if we could only compile and test our program once a year, we'd never get anything done. But that's the mode of aerospace.'" There is a huge difference, though. If you screw up the syntax and your program doesn't compile you fix it recompile and go on with your work. What is the rocket ship equivalent to a syntactical error? A bad o-ring? Mistakes cost more...much more. And although computer simulation is good, the real test, the equivalent of compiling and running, comes when you test it against physics. You can't do that a few times a day.
If he wins, I wonder if the ships' lifecycle will resemble those of his games?
I can see it allready:
1) Carmack devises a ship that excells in performance, but requires very costly componenets in order to deliver on its full functionality.
2) After a years' worth of excellent operational records, other countries license the engine design and build their own ships off of it
3) 2 years after launch a thriving Spaceship MOD community is launching new ships into space every couple of months....
What about the twinkie? - Dr. Peter Venkman, PHD
Duh.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
It seems to me that maybe we should leave the research and development to NASA on things as important as this. Maybe it's just me, but turning rocket development into a contest seems kind of crazy to me. Don't get me wrong, competition is good, it advances technology faster. But, in this case i think it's wrong.
What is slashdot?
'Some people have commented that I am trying very hard to make aerospace like software, and that's the truth," he says. "If we looked at what we do in software, if we could only compile and test our program once a year, we'd never get anything done. But that's the mode of aerospace.' "
Yes but if your test program fails, all you've lost is small amount of time associated with compiling and executing the program.
If the test of your rocket on the other hand fails, you could lose more than just time but materials, money, and in worst case lives.
We're not talking about 1's and 0's, we're talking about real physical matter that costs money to obtain, form, construct, and build. If you recklessly test it, you'll end up worse than no where.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
The crew hopes to launch the real deal at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
This, I have known for a while: I have a buddy that works in WSMR's flight safety group. I'm looking forward to it. I'm hoping that I'll get to watch. *crossed fingers*
However, John's attitude of build a little, test a little isn't just a software attitude. It's the old Xplanes or NACA (pre NASA) attitude towards aeronautics.
For those of you that still use usenet, go check out the sci.space.* heirarchy. You'll find that John's a contributor there, but he's empathetically not the first to espouse such views. However, I know of none that have compared it to software development like he did in this interview.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Somehow, "my software crashed" lacks that ominous feel that "my software crashed" has...
There is no such thing in that post! MODERATORS DO YOUR JOB AND READ THE POST YOU ARE ABOUT TO MODERATE.
Skcus Xunil!
Then != Than
And yeah, parent post is a troll.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/misc/all_set.j pg
Great! Yeah, that's gonna work!
Interesting Troll on Troll here, the parent is a troll, but not for this reason...
You just can't give it up, can you?
Moderators, please watch for these signs:
* Claims that a server like abcnews.com, cnn.com, microsoft.com, etc is "slowing down"
* Anonymous Coward posts with no reference to the poster's true identity
* Lines like so he can cart around cocket parts
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Dick Rutan.
Read the article for once people instead of knee-jerk reacting to an analogy.
Carmack merely wants to improve the method by which rockets are constructed. He says he starts small and builds his way up, rather than constructing the rocket and control system and then working for six months to work out the problems.
This is a well-known software development technique, and I don't see why it wouldn't be generalizable to other fields. If anything it should inspire more confidence in the creator at least.
This gives a hole new meaning to the word Rocket Jump.
big what for a big launch?
Paragraph 3.
The whole Armadillo Aerospace team must be really proud to be showcased thusly on /.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
"One of our regulars decided rocket science is more important than latest model of ..."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
"...as the Jan. 1, 2005, deadline approaches for the X Prize. Sure, it may seem like a long way off, but in the world of rocket science 16 months is a blip in time.
I've read that the longer a project is extimated to take, the greater the likelihood of it running overtime, and the greater the degree of this overrun. Plotting expected versus actual project length looked logarithmic. I think it was in Scientific American a few years ago but I can't find the reference. Anyone? I think they mentioned Denver Airport software as an example of an overrun project. It was built but couldn't be put into operation for a while until they finished the baggage handling programs.
That's why I prefer short, commando style projects. Do something simple, useful, and fast, and get it done on time! Maybe even early.
Now this "X Prize" looks anything but simple, but it sounds like Armadillo Aerospace hit the ground running, getting small results out, rather than not producing larger, more complex results for a long time.
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
We were building a satellite with upload-code capability, and were facing a deadline, so we ran the numbers.
We had a very slow uplink, maybe 300 baud (packet overhead and protocol turn-around time included). And we had a lot of code. The satellite was visible only for maybe 8 minutes out of every 90 minute orbit, so unless we had ground stations positioned all around the world and synchronized, we were effectively limited to about 30 baud long-term average. And we had a lot of code.
What's worse is we figured that the radiation environment would reset the satellite every so often... this was fine in normal operation, but would kill an upload. It would be almost statistically impossible to upload the entire code without an upset.
So, we all got back to work.
Eventually, we got good code and launched the satellite. Unfortuantly, the rocket flew off-course and was blown up by the range safety officer -- the satellite ended up in the water. Our company also made bouys (functionally, they are similar concept satellites), so the debate was always whether we should load the regular code or the bouy code into the satellites. We didn't try to figure out the code-uplink case for "underwater".
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I dunno what the real costs are in making spacecraft, but I doubt they have to deal with the FAA, their costs should be reasonable.
A significant cost of aircraft (non-experimental) is having to deal with the FAA and all its requirements.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
I'm so glad he's not buying anymore Ferrari's. Now I can finally get a salesman to talk to me! yeah right...(sigh) JAV
I cant believe how negative you dorks are being about all this... Is it really so bad that he's spending all his money to boost the aerospace industry? What are Ben and Jen doing with all their money to help mankind? -Dont forget he is not patenting this stuff either!!!!
What most of these articles tend to obscure is that NASA flights and X-Prize flights are really doing different things. NASA is directed almost entirely at orbital spaceflight and beyond. The X-Prize is directed at sub-orbital flight. The physics of orbital spaceflight effectively require the use of large, multi-stage rockets with very high speeds. Sub-orbital flight does not. The X-Prize appears to be aimed at opening up the sub-orbital domain, which has been largely neglected so far.
Hate to say it but I have infinitely more respect for the aerospace people. Yes, their stuff occasionally ends up like expensive fireworks but they do get a lot of things right.
I often wonder if it weren't better to chuck out the compiler and sit down and THINK about how this piece of code should work. Seriously think about whether the stuff is right, then when I am convinced bet with my colleagues that I did get it right. Then compile, then test. Being ready to take the well-deserved ridicule if it did not compile and run at first; loose the bet.
Mindless writing, compiling, testing, debugging is incredibly wasteful. What if I spent four times as much time on getting it the first time? Wouldn't that give me an overall gain in time&money?
Just a provocation, anyway
Aerospace like software, eh?
"Crap, the rocket is not ready and the deadline for launch is tomorrow!"
"Bah, launch it anyways and we'll release a patch later!"
Of course they are the same. Just ask the Challenger crew...
Wow, that's a morbid joke. Sorry.
it would be more like releasing an Eulogy later.
There is an interesting sociological troll phenomenon, where a copy and paste troll will introduce a subtle change into the artical text, usually giving it sexual connotactions,
The moderators mod it up without reading it, and then a Troll on Troller, will report it as being a troll, citing a DIFFERENT subtle change in the text, which is not present in the original troll.
Interesting.
LOL! That was good, I haven't seen one of these trolls in a while. I was wondering for a moment what kind of article would make gratuitous use of the work "cock." You even got some mod points! Nice job.
No comment.
An apparently trivial bug in Mariner 1's computer guidance system resulted in a very short and eventful launch.
This will spur private research and investment in space technology. That's a good thing. We can't count on NASA to do it, they just don't have the budget to do much anymore.
Early development should be done by private groups since they're more flexible and agile. Then once a technology is established, larger bodies (NASA perhaps) could use their vast experience to manage/maintain. Despite the failings of NASA, they are still quite good at what they do. I doubt there are many other groups that can manage end-to-end some of the space applications that NASA does.
Of course, if the contest were to see who could make portable, inconspicuous nukes, that would be a different story.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
The tricky part is that I don't think tests done with small rockets will necessarily give you a good idea of how the big rocket will perform. If that were the case, all we'd really need is to buy a model rocket kit from Wal-Mart and just build it 20x bigger.
So, basically, all Carmack has right now is a product that creates a 100-foot crater in the ground every time it launches?
Who does he think he is, John Romero???
But software design would benefit from being more like aerospace design. Aerospace can't afford the test-patch-test-patch cycle that software goes through. Before we send our designs off to be built, we had better be damn sure they will work. We can't just decide to bolt a wing on later if the orginial doesn't work--it's too expensive and the consequences of a failure are too great. Accurate computer modeling is rapidly becoming the engineer's best friend.
I fucking shudder to think of the average software developer deciding that his skills can carry over into engineering. Like the parent said, QA in the software community at large is sadly lacking. I don't understand why programmers get away with it. From an engineer's perspective, it just looks like shoddy design or laziness. Is it just that software is so intangible, and losses due to bad code are hard to quantify? Is it that we're just used to buggy software and it doesn't occur to us that it could be otherwise?
(Frustration brought to you by:
Sobig: Bogging Down My Company's Network Since Early This Week
and
Win2k SP Four: Breaking Third Party Software So You Don't Have To.)
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
Regardless of who's doing it, and their chances/likelihood of needing an orbital reboot, I'm glad to see someone not stuck on 40 year old technology trying something new. Christ I remember watching the first space shuttle landing when I was like 4. They treat it like it's great and proven tech, but its performance/cost ratio is awful.
Anything to get some new ideas floating around nasa.
Just my opinion.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Aerospace is traditionally less tolerable to crashes than software and I'd say that is a good thing.
an ill wind that blows no good
Thank you, it's always nice to get recognition for hand-crafted trolls honed by herritage craftsmen.
I saw the show on TechTV this morning and I keep wondering why there is still so much naivety about all these X-Prize related efforts. At least Carmack is following a better methodology... he doesn't seem so obsessed with "winning the prize" either, and the team looks like they are actually getting some results.
Never mind sub-orbit (isn't that a military euphemism?), what was the big deal about the "stunt" of orbit anyway? You are confined to Zero-Gravity merry-go-ing around the Earth in an unshielded, poorly built ship controlled by at the best old 8bit computer systems. Any when you want to go outside you have to put on an even bulkier silver coated suit which is probably 45 years old, even though there is some guy sky-diving from Canada at 50km in something 10 times lighter than what you are wearing.
I am afraid this stuff will probably go the way of early eighties aerospace, albeit on a more grandiose scale... hopefully it will go away long enough for the "real stuff", nanotech materials, new energy, inertial drives, to show up and we can all float off the edge of the Earth.
Peace,
SA Thigpen
http://sthigpen.freeshell.org
Carmack's technology is "dual-use"! Git 'em, Bush!
.....to do it right the FIRST time.
Let's face it... if software authors were only able to make MINOR revisions to existing code (and knew it), there'd probably be far fewer bugs out there because they'd be a lot more careful when they first write the code.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
I don't know if its a testing methodology instead of a design methodology - identify the pieces that are needed for the rocket and design, test, fix each one at a time until you have a complete rocket.
This is an approach that seems to be completely counter-intuitive to the current methodology used to develop aerospace craft.
Take for example the X-33. It was a testbed for an advanced thermal protection system, aluminum-lithium cryogenic tanks, aerospike engines and internal structures. Not to mention the shape that hadn't flown in space for re-entry before or the software that had to be designed to bring everything together for an autonomous landing. When difficulty was encountered in one part (the X-33 fuel tanks being a classic example) the entire project got bogged down. Net result: tons of money spent, little enthusiasm for the project which could be cancelled easily because it had not demonstrated any deliverables.
I personally think Dick Rutan's SS1 has the best chance for winning the X-Prize, but if Carmack could influence how aerospace programs are managed, then he will have done something a lot more significant.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
If everybody had an attitude like yours rockets might not have ever been invented in the first place.
Hope they're careful with their pet armadillo; they're one of the few species in the world other than humans that carry leprosy, and I've read that about half of all armadillos have the disease. Texas has one of the higher leprosy rates in the US, and quite a bit of it is due to people messing around with armadillos.
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/index.htm
Burt Rutan is the man who will win this, if anybody will. He is already flight testing the damn thing.
You call it a holy war, I call it English. The English language is being eroded gradually by ignorance.
There's a reason for having two words, then and than. It's preferrable to have exact words that aren't dependent upon context. If we just toss out "than", and exclusively use "then", our language will become even less precise.
Some other common mistakes that really suck:
confusing "your" with "you're"
confusing "their" with "they're"
adding unnecessary apostrophes to plural words - Dog's and Cat's...
Just because some people have forgotten or were never taught how to write the language they speak doesn't mean that we should just dumb it down completely. Taken to the extreme, we could just back all the way up to grunts and growls.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
One of the most common piston engines in general aviation is made by Lycoming.
150 HP
Carbed
Magneto ignition
Requires leaded gas
50-year-old design
Horrendous polluter that runs rough
Cost: Approx $32,000 for a Lycosaurus
Meanwhile, you can get a complete car with a superior engine in all aspects (performance, reliability, smoothness) for under $20,000
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I admire and respect Carmack's space program. He is doing a number of innovative things.
His program of building control systems and then big rockets is mentioned in the article. It's unfortunate that so far whenever they've tried to launch a rocket the computer has immediately crashed -- but they seem to have a handle on why this is happening and the current computer construction and mounting system is far better than the previous ones. He also has a tremendous amount of telemetry, and analyzes the inevitable failures exhaustively.
They is now using a fairly innovative mix of medium-strength hydrogen peroxide and some fuel to power the rocket. Other people (and Armadillo, previously) have used highly purified hydrogen peroxide, but that is hard to get (and expensive) in the quantities that they need. This mixed monopropellant has a higher specific impulse, too.
They are using a innovative final recovery system -- the ship lands nose first on a long aluminum cone that crushes to absorb energy. Unique, cheap, and innovative -- if funny-looking.
The thing I like the most, though, is his website http://www.armadilloaerospace.com (it will surely be slashdotted for the next couple of days.) Carmack is religious about posting the results of the last weeks efforts, warts and all. It appears that he receives substantial insight from people responding to these progress reports (apparently the mixed monopropellant research was instigated by somebody posting results of German WW2 torpedo experiments.) This kind of openness is quite rare in aerospace research.
Anyway, all the best to Carmack et al. I think that Rutan's Spaceship One project may win the X prize, but maybe not -- his system depends on a lot of planning and simulation being accurate, whe re Armadillo can respin the project many ways if things don't work out the first (or second) try.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I was thinking... imagine if Saturn V technology (basically brute force coupled with reliabilty) was still available today. Add to this the latest software/hardware tech, and who knows where we could be by now. Mars, possibly.
...wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea.
Yeah, but damn if that code wouldn't be perfect.
Think to the bad old days of batch processing, where you handed your code to one of the engineer/sysadmin/priests, who would feed it to the system when the system was done doing its current work. You might not get the results of the build+run for 24 hours after submitting it. And you wouldn't get another chance for another 24 hours.
So, before you handed in the code, you would read it. Because the smallest typo would set you back another 24 hours. You would try to prove -- formally, mathematically -- that it was correct, because a simple logic error ("oops, wrote ==, wanted to write !=") would set you back 24 hours, and doing the proofing was faster than waiting an additional day.
Maybe they "got nothing done" back then, but when that software was finished, it was good.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Actually, I have built my own sports car for a few grand, so that invalidates your theory. I guess in the time it took, I could have bought a Corvette, but that would just be a better name brand, the car I built is technically superior (although less asthetically pleasing).
I learned how to take a computer apart and put it back together when I was 2, started programming when I was 3, and built a motorcycle when I was 6. I also started competing with 12-14 year olds in Dressage when I was 7.
No, actually...Moral: Just because it would be faster and cheaper for you, that certainly doesn't mean that the same would be true for everyone. Some people just have more skill than others.
That's sig material!
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
dsafda f aw4e aw4tart aewtrb re4wyhjus fag gsdzfWSSAEhsfa a es ewqrt
Burt can win this. If I had to put my money on someone at this point, I's put it on him. He is a great designer and organizer. As an EAA'er myself, I have a lot of respect for him.
That said, he is having the same problem he had with his helicopter/SSTO project. He doesn't have an engine yet, and time is running pretty short for development. He has two contractors bidding, but the timeline is so tight, that more than one or two major development hiccups will screw the pooch for his project. White Knight and SSO are great looking, and the concept is sound, but it took 3 years to design a decent engine for the x-15, and I have a feeling that designing one for a ship designed for the same flight profile as the x-15 will have similar problems. Don't hand him the check just yet.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
I think the concept of build, test, build again is pretty sound. Most of the groups involved in space don't use this concept, and I think it really fits this industry to a tee. Good for John. Eventually, geeks will rule the world, and the universe with John's help.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
Obviously, you never worked on the software portion of an aerospace project.
I know from personal experience that the test-patch-test-patch cycle is alive and well in all the software products produced by the aerospace corporations that I have worked at.
The design of the product like a airplane or ship or whatever itself might need alot of upfront resources, but I will tell you that there are multimillion dollar maintenance contracts on aerospace software maintenance. Fixing bugs that got by QA.
This is for the software. Not the hardware.
And yes, these are Engineers. And there is a QA process, its just that it seems software is much more complex and is therefore much harder to test.
Given the capabilities of modern IT, it makes much more sense to use software as the core of the system, in the same was as software is the core of a device like the Segway, or the stair-climbing robot, or the telescopes that consist of a thousand small mirrors, not one large one.
Control system engineers as well as artificial intelligence scientists (where the two fields are slowly meeting at a point called "intelligent systems") might take offense at equating their entire fields to IT.
or impossible
must... stay... awake...
..would advocate "crash-first engineering"?
After all - he invented the "rocket jump" in Quake ! He's had years to perfect it
its just that it seems software is much more complex and is therefore much harder to test.
I can see that. And maybe it's that in hardware design we can throw on redundancy, and that, oftentimes, "pretty close" can be good enough. I don't think software has that built in margin of safety. (My extensive experience with off-by-one errors seems to support this..."Seg fault?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'SEG FAULT!?' AHHHH!" *throws computer out window*)
But my point is, I don't think Carmack's proposed "build a little, test a little" method of aerospace design will work unless he has some very careful QA aero engineers vetting his designs for big, likely-to-blow-things-up mistakes. The aero community is justified in viewing him skeptically. If an aero engineer decided that he had this great new method for developing gaming software, would you believe him, or wait to see some results?
That said, I do wish Carmack and his team the best of luck. Spaceflight could benefit from a little more risk-taking--but I hope that he's taking the right risks, and getting some experienced people to help him decided what the right risks are.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
In the early (pre-WW II) days of aviation, most of the innovations did not come from a large team spending years doing calculations, then building a single prototype that incorporated dozens of new ideas. Most advancments (such as leading edge slats, Fowler flaps, super-charged engines, etc.), were made in single small steps, often by a small team or single inventor.
Only later, once most of the kinks were worked out, did we get the famous "revolutionary" aircraft that incorporated several new features at once to produce major breakthroughs. By working out the bugs in his rocket systems one at time, through frequent iterations of design-build-test, Carmack is closer to the traditions of the "seat of the pants" engineers and flyers who started the aviation industry.
I once read an article by the famous race pilot and engineer Steve Whittman on how he tested a new wing tip design. To get the fastest results on whether it was better than his old design, he only built one new tip and installed on the left wing of his plane. As soon as he took off, the plane started yawing to the right, telling him that his new, larger wing tip had lower drag. sounds like Carmack has a similar mind-set...
...i had a bit of a brainfart. sorry.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Most historians think the Russian model of aerospace development was more successful than the American model. The Russians built fully functional rockets and did virtually no testing. That led to very fast improvements and now they're the only nation still launching humans into space. The Americans did incremental testing, only building full test flights in the final stages and you know where their human space flight ended up.
Aerospace problems are a lot harder than software problems, but unlike software, you can't share aerospace. You can't make a web page, have your achievements downloaded, and leave a lasting impression on people by building a rocket prototype. It ends up being done for yourself, isolated. Except for one or two blog articles no-one thinks about it.
never let John Carmak write systems that peoples lived depend on.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I see a lot of skeptics replying, "Carmack is wrong headed, if you screw up a rocket, it crashes, it's not just a compile bug". Many of these comments seem to be suggesting that we should go back to the "old school" style of programmer that thought & planned his code before submitting, instead of relying on the feedback of a compiler.
This is based on the completely false assertion that code will be better / more bug free if you "think harder". It ignores that in the past 30 years of programming we have learned the value of feedback in the software development thought process.
The idea that somehow if I spend more time in a chair planning the solution that the solution will be better if I evolve my way to it is some sort of romantic vision of how solutions to tough problems are actually solved. This could be seen as a version the "prove the code works" vs. "test the code" debate. Or that proofs follow from the axioms. I counter that usually it's a process of some rather messy creativity, trial, and error.
In programming in the large, we have generally learned that "phased" approaches to software development (known as waterfall) tend not to work very well because they de-emphasize the feedback that occurs downstream in the development process. To contrast, an incremental approach enables smaller steps to be delivered , and minimizes the impact of erroneous assumptions discovered downstream in the development.
In programming in the small, development is a form of communication between the computer and the developer. The computer is designed to tell us where we are wrong, we just need to tell it exactly what to expect: for this we have compilers and test cases. Compilers can't catch everything.
Now, this is not suggesting that today's style of "let's see if it compiles!" development is appropriate for aerospace. That is the unfortunate effect of feedback & incremental approaches - it makes programming easier, even for people that shouldn't be doing it. These people "program by accident", and just meander through their code until it does the job, sort of. This is not a reflection of the incremental approach in the hands of an experienced developer that "programs on purpose", that understands what he or she is doing at every step of the way.
Aerospace development isn't "amateur hour", and the incremental approach will just make professionals all the more productive.
-Stu
Making Aerospace "like software" is a bad idea in many ways.
You can write a piece of code, and have your peers do a design review. You can test it carefully, and then say, with a very high degree of certitude, that the chunk of code Is Good, it Has Worked, and it Shall Work. Most code development doesn't actually work that way, but it can be done.
Hardware isn't like that. You can design, review, re-factor, re-design, test, revise, and re-test all you want. You can run your final tests 10 times or 100 times. And there's still no guarantee that when you finally strap that motor/pump/guidance system on some hapless schmuck's backside, it won't blow him to smithereens, for reasons that may take months to figure out. The Space Shuttle is the perfect example of a system that was extensively designed, reviewed, and tested by the most qualified people in the world - yet some system flaws didn't really come to light until actually flying the thing, with fatal results. The ultra-careful, baby-steps culture of aerospace exists for a reason.
A reading of "Masters Of Doom" makes it painfully clear that Carmack is a veritable poster-child for Asperger Syndrome, the high-functioning savant style of autism. He may be a mathematical wizard, but his monomaniacal focus leaves no room for compassion for others. I do not think the risks of amateur space travel weigh on his mind the way they might weigh on a more emotionally well-rounded person. And I bet his lovely Randroid wife cheering him on and telling him what a towering giant of industry he is won't help a bit. I think he's underestimating the risks of the project, overestimating the abilities of his group of talented amateurs, and I fear it will all be too obvious in the aftermath of Armadillo's first fatality.
I wish them all the best, I sincerely hope they succeed, but I wouldn't bet on it, all the same. My money would be on the Rutan team - they're experienced and on familiar ground, and they haven't been spouting any nonsense about software "engineering" style.
Actually, the Shuttle main orbiter engines are waaaaaay more advanced than the Saturn V (kerosene, for Pete's sake!) engines ever were, and have proven to be reliable as well. The Saturn V tech isn't unavailable - it's obsolete.
When the shuttle was in development, the fiddly thermal tiles got all the media attention, but it was really the engines that were the stunning technical achievement.
Interesting story from when the shuttle was young gives some specifics about ambitious nature of the shuttle engines, although it's largely critical of the shuttle program in general.
Hey, that's how they made Salvage 1....
I have a feeling Burt Rutan is going to take this prize also. The man really knows how to make things fly.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Softwre for rockets/space shuttle is not
/. readers
something that is new.
And I do cringe like some other
thinking about how software houses design and
deploy and this process being applied to rockets.
Anyway there is a really good article on
how the write softweare for the shuttle.
As the article says its all about process not single minded genius/nutter.
I figured they'd just point a rocket launcher at the ground and take off that way...
chuk
(steel by the pound, etc...)
Uh, do you mean spun, extruded and forged aluminum by the pound?
Saab Aircraft did this in the fifties by creating a scaled down (70%) version what was to become the "35 Draken" (Dragon) to iron out all the issues. The scaled down version did 887 test flights way before the final product was approaching first flight.
In addition the Draken was actually a very nice supersonic design with the first real double delta wing design. Innovation that clearly required a different testing methodology than just throwing it into the air.
Not to be a troll, precursor to me not logging in my account, you provided that the engine would cost $20k. Where do you get that number from?
I've sand-casted and milled parts convergent to build miniature diesel engines from sandcasted aluminum. Material-wise, it only costed about 100 hours (yea, I'm a guy that thinks my time is worth less than $0) picking or looting aluminum soda cans or aluminum rails from public and private trash cans. I know rocket engines are completly different by design, yet I don't see how you account so high for especialy the engine given that this is a hobby and verry like myself don't expect to pay myself back. Perhaps, a team member or two is actualy trying to make a living (charging you alot of money) for working on a project that is monopolized and unlawfuly ussurbed by the Federal Reserve Corp: Federal Aviation Adminsitration Corp.
Just thought I'ld ask, given you put a list of items which I think are over-inflated even by 1980's OPEC strike standards.
"Thank you for flying with Armadillo Aerospace. Please pick up your eyeballs from the floor ...err.. ceiling before leaving the vehicle."
they got the title wrong -- it should read "from doom to BOOM." that's what it's gonna be if carmack plans to build spaceships like they build software.
None of the X-Prize concepts are anything but rehashing 40 year old technology. Next big technological break-thru might be a working scramjet, but succeeding in that is not for the hobbyists. If you are serioisly looking for better price/performance with existing tech check out these guys. Ablatively cooled rocket engine, that's a real innovation!
Here is a '66 Lear 24 with fresh inspections for $345k http://www.aso.com/i.aso/AircraftView.jsp?aircraft _id=76001
t _id=65894
Another, with "XR advances" for $695k http://www.aso.com/i.aso/AircraftView.jsp?aircraf
Soon you will be able to buy a shiny new Eclipse 500 for just under $1 M: http://www.eclipseaviation.com/
Or prehaps you were one of the people who in 1994 claimed that the $1500 linux box could *never* do what a $20 k SparcStation could do?
John,
You forgot to mention that you've spent the last decade simulating close encoutners with all kinds of terrifying space aliens. Once you've found a way into space, you will have an army of geeks already trained in advance alien smashing techniques.
It seems like you've put a lot of careful thought into this project. Best of luck!
I think you will find that Russia also leads the US in number of frozen spacedudes still in orbit!
Hold it right there. Didn't they just finish engine testing for SpaceShipOne recently?
I still will put my money on the White Knight/SpaceShipOne combination to win the prize first, though I wouldn't put it above Armadillo Aerospace to pull off an upset if they can get a successful unnmanned flight working within the next 45 days or so.
if only Sikorsky had had Carmack's ability to turn raw bits into 40 tons of rotating machinery, he'd have patented the worldwide simultaneous orgasm machine by now.
(Hint: sarcasm.)
Multikill ...
*Carmack dancing*
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
What Carmack (Armadillo Aerospace) is proposing is to "re-invent the wheel" every month or so until the deed is done.
My money's on the Canadian Arrow. Why? The Arrow's based on the German V2 rocket - a tried and tested, 1940's design which was then quite capable of putting a 738kg payload beyond the required 100km altitude - all for the measly sum of 119600 Reichsmarks ($47,840 US in 1940 dollars). Reference:V2 Rocket.com. Trade in the payload for 3 astronauts plus gear, install parachutes to recover the main bits, and the job's done.
Scaled Composites is my second favorite. Why? Based on another tried and tested design - the Pegasus - first launched 1990. The Pegasus can put a 455kg satellite in low earth orbit (about 150 kilometers up with a net velocity of at least 7,814 m/s ) - not much of a technical breakthrough required to put 3 astronauts up a mere 100 km. Reference:Orbital Pegasus Page
Also, here's a website that has a downloadable working simulator that illustrates how Scaled Composite's design (SpaceShipOne)works: PRE-Flight Sim Homepage
No language police? Then why must all children's names come from the Government's approved list? Riddle me that, Batman.
How do you think the Russians built rockets?
1- Build
2- Test
3- Crash
4- Post Mortem
5- see 1
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
Do you even have a clue as to why they use magnetos and carbs? You can't call a tow truck at 15000 AGL! Dual magnetos, quality carbs, Safety wire.. and Logbooks to keep the shithead pilots fingers out of the engine.
Having passed my FAA A&P cert in '76 I can tell you that the Lycoming a MTBF that far exceeds anything that is running on wheels, and has been tested every step of production, Every part! Not a haphazzard unskilled assembly like the auto industry.
Manually inspecting and magnafluxing and x-raying parts costs money. You would be amazed at how many Pratt&Whitney, Wright, and Continental engines from the 1940's that are still flying.
My 1962 Cessna 150 is not an antique that comes out just for parades, but is a working plane. The avionics are updated, the engine is original, the prop has been replaced due to erosion from airborne dust bugs and plain old acid rain, but the plane is over 90% original. 6000 flying hours, not hangared until I got her in 1985. Let your car sit out in the rain and snow for 23 years and see how well it holds up.
There is NO automotive engine that comes near to the performance or reliability of a properly maintained general aviation engine. The performance can not even be compared, due to the duty cycle of the engine, the environmental extremes it operates in, and the lack of a requirement for "0-60 in xx sec"
Aircraft HP is a measured brake horsepower measured with all the accessories attached and working. Automotive HP is calculated at the wheels with all the accessories ( oilpump water pump alternator, AC) disconnected.
Quality costs in the material world.
Someday you will understand.
"I call it English. The English language is being eroded gradually by ignorance."
...
hope you got a phone to "call" someone
"It's preferrable to have exact words that aren't dependent upon context."
why do you write in US English then ?
"our language will become even less precise."
Because you think its precise now , learn some other language if you can , then you will see how poor english is and even more your US english.
"Just because some people have forgotten or were never taught how to write the language they speak doesn't mean that we should just dumb it down completely. "
Just because some people ( you ) have never learn how to use the internet and be civilized on it or be taught what are those guidelines and why they are so , should whe cut your line ?
last time I looked the holy wars where won by the muslim , but then Bush is about to rewrite your history books.
Best line of the day. :-)
Clean Room Paradigm for software development works exactly this way - programmers do not have a compiler. It is still possible to do programming and bug level is low. The bad thing is that it gives too much stress for programmers because they are so afraid to commit a code which doesn't work.
Because they don't, Robin.
Government has only the right to refuse to call a child with injurious first name (and it really has to be), which is understandable.
Yes, Gandalf will be accepted, I think.
Some day your going to die. It's inevitable. Going out in a blaze of glory riding a home made rocket into outer space beats the hell out of blinking out in a whimper of irrelevance after years of ill health and decrepitude, IMO.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Maybe, but then, what normally happens is that software project managers have lesser and lesser time to achieve or accomplish more and more stuff... something not true (??, IMHO) in rocket science... (im guessing that rocket scientists have a nice amount of well planned time schedule and time is accounted for properly.)
:)
And yes, there is something called as "Project Management" and "System Analysis" where you design it right so it doesnt go wrong!!!
Kashyap
Yeah, whatever!!!
May I reccommend Ella Minnow Pea, a beautiful little book by Mark Dunn that can easily be read in a couple of hours. I've never ready anything that delighted in the joy of language as much - all without sacrificing its broad accessibility.
Thanks for the URL, EnglishTim.
If anyone hasn't looked through the pictures, perhaps they should start by looking at the one where their parachute drop test didn't yield good results. Here, I don't remember NASA having anything like this happen; just makes me feel more American that the team John joined is working for success!
When the USA spaceteam met up with the russian team they found that the russians didn't spend much time on designing things they adopted things they knew would work and testet others that might. The speed of trial and error development was more than design everything and then maybe test it. So the russion where quicker and more agile in many aspects of space travels. So this might be a good mixture of how to do things. If you can use both methods at the same time you might be more likely to end up in space with less amount spent on the project. But let us not forget that nasa did this with it's mars missions. Wich resulted in a new landmark creating force on Mars: NASA
They tested it in glide mode. It still doesn't have an engine. White Knight took it up to 44000ft and dropped it.
It was s very successful test, with the ship behaving just like in the sim, but an engine burn is at least 8 months away, and that's if there are no development problems.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
>It still doesn't have an engine
c XPRIZE/R utanVideos-Apr'03/SS1EngineTest.mpg
Actually, they don't have one engine, because they have two engines to choose from. All they have to do is pick one and install it.
The details: two companies, eAc and SpaceDev, have both done full duration burns of their hybrid engines already. According to Aviation Week, Rutan is going to pick one of those two teams shortly, then attach the engine to SS1. The first rocket tests will only involve short-duration, level flight. Then they will expand the envelope until they win the X-Prize.
>but an engine burn is at least 8 months away
If you don't believe me that the engines are already ready, watch this video:
http://ast.faa.gov/COMSTAC/May2003/comsta
Barring a major disaster, Rutan will take the X-Prize in the next six months.
Engines burning on a test stand, and burning behind a winged, composite sled are two different things. Like I said, my money is on Burt at this time. I think he will be successful, but I am a pessemistic sort. Once they get through the first 2-3 tests, I will be downright optimistic, but until then, he has a glider and an unproven engine that has only been tested on the stand.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright