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X-Prize Cup Site Chosen: New Mexico
savuporo writes "MSNBC reports: "The X Prize Foundation and the New Mexico Office of Space Commercialization are joining forces to stage the multifaceted X Prize Cup, a two-week-long event that allows for privately financed, passenger-carrying space vehicles to compete for prizes.' The first Cup is expected to be held summer, 2006, while 2005 will probably see a 'Public Spaceflight Exposition.'"
I think there'll be too much publicity about the thing around the time for anyone of that ilk not to have heard about it.....
Video Game cheats, hints a
Um, ok. and they'll all stand nearby while high powered rockets, designed and built by just about anybody, take off and land... mmmmm that sounds safe.
I hope the viewing area is as far away as during shuttle launches.
Seriously, should we be considering something like this yet? with passengers and spectators?
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Makes sense, considering that Goddard was launching sophisticated liquid-fueled rockets outside of Roswell prior to World War 2, and of course, White Sands Missile Range is also in New Mexico. Also, New Mexico is (imho) the most beautiful state in the United States, but also one of the poorest. It needs a boost like this.
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SKYKING, SKYKING, DO NOT ANSWER
Remember, some of these are people that still don't believe we landed on the moon.
For 5, I would think that craft design would be the limiting factor. If the craft is designed right, then the humans inside it should be reasonably comfortable, even at high Gs. Think of it as a way to test the breadth of design, winning this category means that in addition to having a design that works in terms of the "commercial spaceflight" goal, you also have something that can get up there and come back down fast. Short flight times are good, think of why the concorde existed. Now think of a much more lucrative market. You get the idea.
And, no, I should not have used the goddamn Preview mode first.
This may relate in someway to how Airline Carriers are rated. Faster turn around time means your aircraft is in flight more, which means it's more efficiently utilized (which makes more $$$). For example, Southwest has the fastest turn around time in the industry (20 minutes): [http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/pdf/2002-2-0012.pdf ]
While building an X-Prize class of vehicle is an impressive achievement, it's a long, long way from putting somebody into orbit and retrieving them again. You require a hell of a lot more thrust to put somebody into orbit, the heat shielding requirements for the way down are much tougher, and you've got to be able to maintain life support for at least several hours rather than a few minutes.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I myself am a space enthusiast. Personally, I have no problem with the private sector wanting in on space flight, and in fact, I think it would be good for the troubled American economy. The only thing is these companies have no practical experience with putting humans into space, and they seem to be jumping in head first rather than 'testing the waters' so to speak. Remember, NASA has had more than 40 years experience putting humans into space, and they by no means just dove right in. I don't know fully about the tests being conducted with these spacecraft, but from what I can gather these companies are in over their heads. They are attempting to start their 'space business' by putting 20 or 30 people in space at a time, when they should really start out slow for safety's sake. What's going to happen if these companies rush to put massive numbers of people in space, forgetting about safety and we have another Challenger or Columbia, but this time with civilians, and more of them? The industry really needs to slow down, or else we are in for a terrible tragedy.
Can everybody in the US please get over the need to relate everything in the entire world to terrorism?
There was one attack, 2.5 years ago. It was a horrible thing, but if someone wants to do something like it again there are uncountable ways that are easier than getting their hands on an as-yet-nonexistent private orbital craft and a weapon capable of surviving re-entry.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Statistically, you're probably right. Sooner or later, a privately-funded spacecraft is going to have an accident. There have been many events that push the limits of human capability, such as the air races, the America's Cup (or the Vendee Monde (?) solo-around-the-world yacht race), motorsports, and pretty much any other sport involving state of the art technology and human know-how, and in each of them there have been fatalities, and usually not due to reckless abandon on the part of the participants. Everyone knows that some endeavours are inherently dangerous, but that doesn't stop them from making the attempt. If everyone was content to live in a neutral coloured soft padded cubby then the world would be a pretty boring place. Plus we'd all still be living in (padded) caves.
Less is more.
(a) the people currently pursuing the X-Prize have no regard for the safety of themselves or others, or that they're incapable of making sound decisions based on their knowledge (presumably because they're blinded by the need to be-there-first); and
(b) somehow, "properly funded and controlled organizations" (such as NASA?) DO have the ability to make these decision.
Recent events in the Space Shuttle program would suggest that the people doing the controlling are blinded by their career aspirations and the need to meet arbitrary schedule and performance targets, rather than making properly informed decisions based on sound risk assessment. "It's okay to launch in cold weather".... "We don't need to check the tiles because EVA is a little bit dangerous"...
Less is more.
Should private space craft become widely available, it would be theoretically possible to deliver (at the very least) a kinetic energy bomb to any point on the earth, at many times the speed of sound, using nothing more sophisticated than box cutters.
How to fix?
Easy. Outlaw all boxcutters, manufacture huge, expensive machines to detect box cutters, and take away the constitutional rights of anyone known to own or have access to box cutters. I suggest starting the investigations with school teachers. They always seem to have access to sharp pointy things, and, with the grades American students are getting, they clearly are focusing on other things than their jobs.
Or you could just wake up and realize that terrorism deaths were barely a blip in the annual death toll, barely outranking the flu for that year. Still shitty, but not worth removing the rights of some significant portion of a quarter billion people.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?