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Canadian X-Prize Entry Gearing Up
lommer writes "The Globe and Mail has a piece up about the Canadian Da Vinci team which is making a bid for the X-prize. The team has finalized a launch location (Kindersley, Saskatchewan) and will announce a launch date this month. Meanwhile, Burt Rutan and Co. over at Scaled Composites appear to be back on track with a succesful test flight on March 11 after their December crash. One has to wonder, with launch dates being set, will some projects step up and attempt a flight without being fully ready for it?"
I've got to give them credit for creative funding!
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Carmack should just strap someone into his space ship, and plow em into the side of a mountain or explode them off the pad or whatever.
End this spaceman nonsense once and for all, and get back to work finishing Doom 3.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
One has to wonder, with launch dates being set, will some projects step up and attempt a flight without being fully ready for it?
Will any of them really be ready for it?
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
Rutan still has a *long* way to go. His craft has only made it up ~20km. That leaves him with about 80km to go. When he has more km behind him instead than ahead of him, then we'll talk.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
One has to wonder, with launch dates being set, will some projects step up and attempt a flight without being fully ready for it?
Of course - this sort of venture always comes with risk, and one of 'em is pushing your timetable up because the other guy looks like he's about to win. Given what happens when you screw up with space flight, I'd expect to see a fatality or two occur in the next couple o' years.
And one should keep in mind: It's all fun and games until someone gets killed. Then it's a SPORT! :-)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
All these various projects gearing up is excellent, hopefully with one successfully taking the prize. (I only hope the rest don't just pack it in when one team wins.) Woohoo!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I live about 2 hours away. I think that I will be attending. Not sure what kind of a show will be put on. But I am quite sure that this may be a once in a lifetime oportunity. Well hopefully another launch 2 weeks later.
RiGgA
with launch dates being set, will some projects step up and attempt a flight without being fully ready for it?
Only once.....
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
So there, pphhhfft!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I understand the impracticalities of leaving Canada to launch, but it is my understanding that the reasons that NASA has headquarters in the south of the U.S. (Florida and Texas) is that the rotation of the earth, especially close to the equator, has significant velocity that the shuttles use as a "boost."
It is because Saskatchewan is an ideal spot for landings from space.
Large parts are grassland plains, with very little water obstacles, and the road networks are about 1/5th of the total roads in Canada.
It also helps to have a Redneck population, in case of alien landing. Kidding, kidding, I kid because I love...
Russia has designated SK an emergency landing zone for cosmonauts. And a rich guy who circled the globe in his baloon landed in SK too.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Who picked Saskatchewan as a launch site??
Don't they understand that the closer to the equator they are, the greater the natural velocity of the vessel? By picking a trajectory so far North, they will have to burn more fuel to get the vehicle up to a speed which they would've gotten for free if they started somewhere closer to the equator.
The rotation of the Earth could help 'fling' the craft into the air, but instead, by going so far North, it's just going to help the craft spin (imaging launching a craft from the North pole...the rocket would be naturally spinning as it left the ground).
I personally see humanities choice as between creating an economically viable presence in space-and gradually moving industry there-as Gerard O'Neill at Princeton proposed-or facing the probability of nuclear war or worse. In light of that, I _do_ think that a lot of risk is warrented to create a human presence in space.
Even if I'm wrong here, people risk their lives for far less worthwhile objectives(i.e. look at the folks that die after drug overdoses, drunk driving accidents or of AIDS).
The folks that say the risk here isn't warrented are generally envious, cowardly whiners that know that noone like them has a shot at ever winning a competition of this nature--and are afraid that if someone else gets a little bit of increases status it will be that much less left for them. Such cowards have taken the earth to the brink of disaster. Playing it safe-and avoiding the search for poritive sum technological solutions to humanity's major problems is a major root of the enormous decimation of species and genocide of entire peoples--folks don't even put sigificant effort into conceiving of truly positive sum approaches to humanity's future they are so stuck in a narrow way of looking at the world.
Whatever it is, something's got them held up. If they were as open as Carmack has been, we'd all have a better idea as to what it is.
1992-12-17 08:31:47 Canadians to shoot for X Prize in ten years (articles,space,nostradamus) (rejected)
From the article:Wildfire's total budget is $5-illion, while the Rutan, its main competitor from California, has a $25-million wallet filled by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. "It's the Canadian team with no money against the American team with unlimited resources," said Ms. Wildman. "But they just did some test flights and had a failed landing and our testing has gone perfectly. We feel like we have the edge."" The thing funded by Bill Gates crashes. What else is new?
_____
Thank you.
* 2004-04-01 19:52:07 Don't forget... (articles,linux) (rejected)
Summary:
* rejected (1)
Apparantly, the G&M can't tell the difference between Wildman and Wildfire. Or, worse, between Paul Allen and Bill Gates.
Makes me sad to be a Canadian.
*Sigh*
hmmm... 4 comments up same response with a sentance more of obvious explanation = 5, insightful. me = offtopic.
idiots.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Maybe... except that the rules state that it has to be a manned flight. Would you want to go up knowing your team wasn't "fully ready for it"?
I didn't think so.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
We've got full tanks of kerosine and Lox, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing spacesuits built by the lowest bidder. .... hit it! ....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I've read that it depends on the orbit you are hoping to achieve. If you are looking to get into an equatorial, geosynchronous orbit, it's best done from the equator.
Polar orbits, however, get little to no benefit from the location of the launch site. That's why places like Churchill Manitoba can look good for rocket launches...
Reference 1
Jason Pollock
Is he in this competition?
hmmm... 4 comments up same response with a sentance more of obvious explanation = 5, insightful. me = offtopic.
If it makes you feel any better, I'd mod you "redundant" if I hadn't already posted to the topic.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
1566-7-02 01:32:00 The north bird does not beat the karmic force (quatrain,space,nostradamus) (rejected)
What is it? Read a few links to inform yourself. What I really want to know is why this conspiracy keeps continuing. You know the one I'm talking about. Canada. Canada doesn't really exist. Want proof? Let me show you.
A few questions about Canada:
But I can see Canada! It's on our maps!
Ah, yes. You have been brainwashed by the governments of the world with their lies. Without the help of so called "map experts", would you really know what you were looking at? It could be Alaska for all you know. It could have been imposed on a gullible world at many times in history. From the beginning of the so-called "New World", people have been convinced that Canada exists.
Don't all of these experts agree that Canada exists?
Yes, they do, but should one be suspicious of such overwhelming agreement? Obviously they are trying to hide something. Would an individual student that talks of such a topic in a school be awarded a degree for talking such "nonsense"? No, he/she would be ostracized by classmates. And so, the groupthink makes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Who would ever want to perpetrate such a hoax?
It's hard to say how many have played a part in this conspiracy over time, but the primary players are easy to spot. The US government, of course, has played its own role in the hoax. They even invaded "Canada" at one point in their history to build nationalistic pride, even though the US "lost" that war. Imagine how easy it was to start the hoax back then, with no TV or radio, only newspaper articles that were hopelessly out of date! People all over the world simply assume that Canada exists now, and that is something that governments, both official and secret, can hold over the people.
And so, now that you know, can anyone come forth with proof that Canada exists?
(This post was based loosely on this website.)
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
The storys inaccurate, its not Bill Gates funding Spaceship one, its Paul Allen. Microsoft connection yes, Gates, no.
Canadians have put something in space. A guy called Gerald Bull used to routinely shoot things 100 km up. If he hadn't been murdered, probably by a spy, he probably would have put a satellite in orbit.
I'm suprised that no one has made a movie about him. The following link is definately worth a look:
www.astronautix.com/articles/abroject.htm
redundant makes sense...
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
What do you say, Canada?
Does that mean I as a Canadian am a figment of someone's imagination? Sweet! Time to download more mp3s, since they can't sue a nonexistent person!
And so, now that you know, can anyone come forth with proof that Canada exists?
Hi.
(From Vancouver, British Columbia)
Quote: One has to wonder, with launch dates being set, will some projects step up and attempt a flight without being fully ready for it?
Apparently only those run by NASA.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/03/31/canada/downlo ad_court040331 a ding_music.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/internet/downlo
The link above has a typo in it, here is the correct link.
Being close to Saskatchewan, I'll go for the launch.
Using my Celestron 9.25" Telescope with video camera, I'll give Slashdot a good update at www.spacecanada.org
The website you point to is banned in China.
So now I don't know if the moon is real or not! Arg!
First off, it isn't a matter of bringing materials back to earth. The fundamental question is the surface of a planet the right place for a technological civilization or would technological infrastructure be better placed someplace else--and the earth's surface perserved as a unique and valuable enviornment.
The basic problems with population control mechanisms:
Not all people want to have their population controlled
The folks doing the controlling have a nasty habit of seeing people like themselves as the ones that should be most exempt from controls
Reliance on moral persuasion to create population control tends to select for people lead likely to respond to moral persuasion
There _may_ be some folks that can successfully create a population control policy that has no negative side effects-and doesn't require an authoritarian government(i.e. like that in China) to administer--and isn't accompanied with various nastiness(i.e. like what the Chinese are doing to the Tibetans)---but I sure haven't seen it.
At the present time, it still appears to me far more likely to me that humanity will get into space than humanity will institute a democratic, non-authoritarian, non-genocidal world order with population stability and preservation of human diversity and that doesn't include space development.
My sense is that societies without frontiers have an inherent tendency to become authoritarian and insular--I really can't think of good exceptions.
These Canadians should give up. We all know that the X-prize will be won by a team on an upcoming edition of Junkyard Wars/Scrapheap Challenge. Ratings are down ever since they changed hosts, and all the "We want Cathy back!" letters have gone unanswered. Clearly they must have a huge competition and/or have the current host flash her tits.
Do you understand what united states "of america" means?I'm from Canada and I am just as much of an american as any peep from the US, Mexico,Panama or whatever.I find it interesting how United Statesians can't seem to understand their own countrys name.
Yeah, while we're at it, it's about time Canada admitted that they're actually part of America, and stopped claiming to be a different country just because they've got more snow.
The problem isn't raw materials for construction. We're literally swimming in 'em. The problem is going to be energy production. Oil and coal will be around for a little bit longer, but 50 years down the line when the rest of the 3rd world (and all of China) is turning on their lights at night, and you're talking about serious energy concerns. "Alternative" isn't an option, it's going to be a necessity.
The other problem is that NASA is dealing with space exploration in the completely wrong way. I wish they were bigger Sci-Fi geeks, because just about every single example of our future's spacecrafts are designed and built in space. It's stupid to be expending this much effort to go up and down when you could be having interstellar flights lasting months for the same amount of energy.
What the X-Prize is really all about is that we need to be able to get into space reliably and back again, it should be cheap, and it should be relatively safe. NASA has been spending a large part of its dough in past years to develop something that is fully capable of being produced by commercial interests today. But for real space travel, you need scientists on board for long periods to work "in-the-field" so to speak. If you need them to go to the surface of a planet, you just use shuttle craft.
What annoys me is that they (NASA) should be putting their cash in interstellar space vehicle design, in-space production, and power requirements for these ships. There's no reason we can't have people studying Mars while orbitting it -- if you need food for three months, you just tack on an extra cargo hold to your ship and have only the mass / energy considerations to think about.
Nowadays the primary concern is "I've only got so much payload because this thing has to break loose of the Earth's gravity intact." So they're flinging satellites to the far edges of our solar system, keeping their fingers crossed for the sometimes decade-long wait to find out if their fragile, expensive equipment functions correctly.
Why does NASA ignore what is so obvious to the rest of the imaginative world? Most sci-fi and anime fans already knows there are escape velocity/atmosphere vehicles, and interstellar vehicles (and know that the two don't mix very well with each other).
OK, let's try on the supposition that Armadillo makes it up first (twice in 2 weeks, yada, yada, yada) and claims the X Prize. Then what?
Seriously, Armadillo's design looks to have little or no continuing commercial potential other than as a joyride for people with more money than brains. Using a parachute for return to Earth and a crumple nosecone for landing? Why isn't Estes a big sponsor for them?
Of course, not winning the X Prize will likely have no effect on Scaled Composite's effort except for a loss of another PR opportunity. The Orteig Prize was a catalyst, but it didn't turn the competitors into the airline industry of today. (When was the last time you flew on Lindbergh Airlines, hmm?)
--- Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary. ---
A space launch from my hometown. Whoda thunkit? I guess they figure they won't actually damage anything if it goes wrong. :)
Your kind of people is the reason why USA is unpopular. That, and inane reality shows and the endless stream of hiphop music. And what kind of invention is it that you speak of, this invention called "American"? "American was an American invention!" makes no sense at all. I'm sorry if I don't use obscure units of measurements... so get rid of me the American way; sue me or bomb me.