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.' "

Comments

Cost

[Brahmastra]

The team is spending between $1 million and $2 million to build its craft.

How on earth do they intend to build a spacecraft carrying people for $1-2 million? Even an extremely used Learjet costs a few million! Am I missing something?

Re:Cost

[couch_potato]

Yes. Markup. Do you really think Bombardier spends $15 million building a new Learjet?

Nevertheless, I wonder who would be willing to strap themselves into a space vehicle that cost 'only' $1 million to develop.

It's not an entirely stupid process

[heironymouscoward]

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.

WSMR & John's approach

[anzha]

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.

Re:hm

[G-funk]

That's the first thing that sprang to my mind when I read that as well! :)

But all jokes aside, this is what's going to push manking further. People like John Carmack who are smart, driven, and can afford to play in aerospace. Maybe Armadillo won't be the company that makes space travel cheap or even possible for the average successful joe shmoe, but somebody like him will. Given the tantrums thrown by nasa when somebody wants to go up to space who's not an "astronaut" even on another country's rockets, it's sure as hell not going to come from them, even in competition with the [russians|chinese|indians].

Re:A little more important than a contest

[mdielmann]

We got where we are in the aircraft industry by using contests and prizes. It motivates people who aren't established in the industry (or to join an unestablished industry) to try out their ideas, and accept the risks for the chance of a huge reward (and hopefully not 'the great reward'). Think of it as a way of short-circuiting the old-boys network.

Also, you can be sure people are going to die because of this. People died trying to get to Asia, cross the Atlantic, get to the north pole, discover redioactivity, (nearly died) to discover electricity, and create trains, automobiles and airplanes. Why do you think this advance will cost less than most of the others? That's the nature of the game. Now as far as general destruction, that's easy, too. Launch over deserted land or over water, and you'll minimize the risk to uninvolved individuals.

Ultimately, advancement requires risk. Large, established organizations are adverse to risk, leaving two options: slowed (or stalled) innovation, or introduction of players willing to take risks. I personally would like to see something more advanced than the space shuttle, and at the rate NASA is going, I'll be waiting another decade or three for them to do that.

Software Design *most definitely* != Rocket Design

[Unknown Kadath]

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