Slashdot Mirror
John Carmack's Test Liftoff a Success
brainstyle writes "Space.com is reporting that John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace (and who apparently has some game design hobby) has had a successful launch of the prototype of its entry in the X-Prize. From the article: 'I had tried several algorithms on the simulator before settling on this one, and it behaved exactly the same in reality, which is always a pleasant surprise.'"
If we can't shoot it or drive it, what good is it ?
i like his hobby better
Dibs on shotgun!
May we one day see a FOSS satellite in orbit?
Seriously, I think that this demonstarates the new power given to the (relativly) little guy by computers. Thanks to simulation we can all tweak ideas without blowing up prototypes.
I wish I had as much free time as some of these people.:E
May the Maths Be with you!
'I had tried several algorithms on the simulator before settling on this one, and it behaved exactly the same in reality, which is always a pleasant surprise.'
I hope he's not referring to the "simulator" about the space marine on Mars/Phobos/Deimos...
(especially not if the simulation behaved exactly the same)
but server crashes and burns with only 6 posts on the article??
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It really is nice to see some of your more favorite programmers involved in their hobbies. It makes them more real in a way that "sitting behind a computer screen and doing nothing else to stimulate your mind" can. Not to mention he probably wrote the simulator, lol.
anyways, this is good news for J.C. congrats man
he'll have a deadline more precise than "when it's done" if he wants to win the X-Prize.
he isn't working on Doom 3!
but they look a little behind the ball. SpaceShipOne is already carrying people into space(the official limit) and they are launching a small rocket. Even if they don't win I hope they keep going.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
'I had tried several algorithms on the simulator before settling on this one, and it behaved exactly the same in reality, which is always a pleasant surprise.'
I know not this reality which you speak of.
Is this the reason we still haven't seem Doom 3 yet?
So in 6 months they are going to go from a prototype that goes 100 feet to carrying three people into space? Obviously they are not contenders for the X-Prize.
100 km is nothing! It just makes the thing a high altitude plane. You can't maintain a stable orbit a that altitude, and the planes that get up there are nowhere near escpae velocity.
A rocket that can get up there will need more than just a few extra miles. It needs to travel at about 10 times the speed, have serious prtection for reentry, and have heavy shielding to protect it once it gets out of the Van Halen belt.
I wonder how have the experiences of programming things like the DOOM / QUAKE engine helped in this project? I mean, I am very sure that it is a great asset to be an all-around great programmer for the armadillo project, but I cannot relate how being able to squeeze frames and triangles out of a graphics card helps when dealing with rocket related... stuff; Maybe writing the physics engine and the collision detection code and being able to debug well helped? was there any direct relationships between the day job and the hobby? How did they help eachother?
/. should do another interview with J.C...
dammit
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I'm sure the Armadillo team would have loved to have won the X-Prize, but they don't seem to be too discouraged. They've built a rocket that flies and lands very neatly, and that uses a novel propellant mixture. I gather they're still going to try to build an X-Prize class vehicle over the next year or so. They've learned a lot about building rockets. And, judging by the celebration when they landed that test flight, they're still having fun. Sounds like a hell of a hobby to me, and I wish I had the cash to do something like it :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Cant wait to see that BFG M-II, scaled up to blast some astroids.
"/Dread"
Can someone honestly tell someone is going to fly 20 miles into space using this wirey little hover-craft? I think a plane/rocket is a little more practical do you? I seriously doubt the design is suitable for reaching orbit.
Beware, geeks, maybe there is no light at the end of the tunnel...
John Carmack just showed us inferior quakers what a REAL rocket jump is like ...
I love the video. The rocket looks great, but the funniest bit is when we see that everybody was hiding behind a car for safety :)
btw, which one of them is John?
The home page of Armadillo Aerospace says that the rocket is hydrogen peroxide fueled. But hydrogen peroxide (H_2 O_2) is just the oxidizer, right? What is the fuel, I wonder? The rocket produces almost no visible flames .
Also is an equatorial launch even needed if it's going to be sub-orbital anyway?
Is there any advantages from a high Polar launch have any advantages that an equatorial launch might lack?
How is this supposed to result in a manned space-flight with a 2-week turnaround? Is Armadillo primarily a software product, with the hardware being done 'at the last stage'?
...
Honestly, I really just don't get it. It seems great that they've got a vertical takeoff and landing algorithm, but what about all the other hard science thats going to be required to keep a human alive during the flight?
Maybe someone familiar with their program can explain it to me, because I really want to believe that Carmack is going to take us to space, having been responsible for THE technology that has wasted so much of humanity's time so far
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
As any self respecting geek has a slashdot account i have to figure John Carmack of all people does... So how bout it, what do you have to say for yourself?
"Alcohol, cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" -Homer Simpson
Put SpaceShip One up there, with the Armadillo rocket as payload. 3 stages to orbit.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well, a fully amateur satellite effort, anyway. Here.
For those of you that are underwhelmed by the 310 pound vehicle, do note that the big vehicle (1500 lbs) that can actually carry people is also flying. Look back in the Armadillo updates around April 19 for testing video. We have since reworked the propulsion system to follow what has worked so well on the subscale vehicle, and should be testing it this weekend. If it works well, we will be repeating the boosted hop with the big vehicle next week.
The flight time is currently limited by federal law to 15 seconds of rocket burn time. We have a waiver coming to extend that to 120 seconds, but beyond that we will need a full launch license.
The significance of all this is that the vehicles are intended to fly up, come back down and land right where they took off from, all without ablating, expending, or seperating anything. It should be possible to have turn around times under one hour even for quite large vehicles.
BTW, Doom beta testing is going very well.
John Carmack
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EzRocket is a great, great testbed for a restartable, reliable, affordable, commercially available rocket engine.
And the flight test series they conducted really did push the state-of-the-art in rocket propulsion, in all of the arenas above
However , the EZRocket testbed - a converted Rutan LongEze homebuild aircraft - is in *no way* a suitable platform for development as a honest-to-goodness Space Rocket. It's not even got a pressurised cockpit, for instance.
XCor do have sub-orbital transport plans - the Xerus vehicle - but this is at the concept stage: it's not a complete design let alone having any bent metal!
--
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
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I don't see Xcor on the list of X Prize teams:
http://www.xprize.org/teams/teams.html
Unless they're on there under a different name, they're not competing.
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"Liftoff a Success... but giant sky-pen fails to leave it's mark." It does look like a giant wooden pencil though!
And my god, no sarcasm here!
Ooh, and btw, I'm realtivly sure Cameric didn't write duke nukem...
No sarcasm? The post is clearly a troll. The Duke Nukem comment is just a second bait for whoever does not get the first. Seems like you were hooked on both:) But I think the Insightful modifier is giving wackybrit more laughs than your reply.
"It doesn't have to be that way, because we have advantages at our disposal today that no government on earth had at the beginning of the space age ....
freedom from politics, i thought.
Posted as AC due to recent overzealous mods.
I have been following Carmack's progress since almost day one, but will they make it? Unless something horrific goes wrong with the Scaled Composites airplane, they will win the prize. They have already made a couple of high-altitude flights and are working towards a launch in THREE DAYS!
A blog like any other.
Oh no! The evil Government is depriving you of your right to bear arms like tanks and nukes.
You have to draw the line of what "arms" means somewhere, so why not draw it at automatic weapons.
Gun ownership? Screw that, it's all about RPGs these days. They'll pry my rocket launcher from my cold dead hands!
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
Let's be honest, he'd have about another 2 years to go before that thing can make 100km. I'd be suprised if it could rise 1 kms at the moment.
Uh.. I don't know if I read this correctly, but..
"The flight was perfect. It went 131 feet high, and landed less than one foot from the launch point," Carmack reported on his publicly accessible web site. "It can easily do flights three times as long, which may show up some problems before we hit them with the big vehicle."
..131 feet, and it can easily do flights three times as long, which is what, ~400 feet?
I don't get it, how is that something good? Even at 400 feet, that's nowhere near the target altitude.
Please correct me if I missed something, as it is 7AM and I've been up all night programming.
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
Holy smokes! that was a really impressive video. How in the world did they make it so that the rocket stabilized so well? I mean, gyroscopes only provides a partial answer. When the said that it landed within 1 foot of the launch pad, I assumed they meant that it *fell* within one foot of the launch pad. That thing sailed up and came down as if it was landing on an egg shell. Impressive!
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=111496&cid=946 1296
Your wish is his command.
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
It apparently never dawned on them that their device could malfunction and explode, spraying them with shrapnel. Or, it could have gone off course and landed on them.
Sheesh!
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
I had tried several algorithms on the simulator before settling on this one, and it behaved exactly the same in reality, which is always a pleasant surprise.
In other news, Doom 3 will have a new vehicle available for players to use...
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Which would you rather go to space in?
... but difficult to get really excited about.
I don't doubt the Bert Rutan team are closer to the Xprize - and it is a nice looking ship they have - but it does look a bit like like a glorified aeroplane that hitchhikes into space. Which is - alright....
But the Armadillo ship is a real boy's-own full on VTOL geek rocket ship!
Not pretty - but WOW!
Find Japanese addresses in English on Google Maps Japan: http://diddlefinger.com/
They stood close because they were hoping the exhaust would dye their hair blond.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
What is the performance?
With both engines running (800 lb thrust total) and maximum propellant load, takeoff roll is 500m (1650 ft) for 20 seconds. After pulling up, climb is established at constant airspeed at Vne, or 195 knots. Burnout is after a maximum of two minutes, still at 195 knots indicated, which equals Mach 0.4. The maximum altitude that can be attained is 1.91 miles (10,000 ft). The maximum climb rate is 52 m/sec (10,000 ft/min). It is likely we will never take the plane to the maximum altitude capability.
Quote from article, "John Carmack, co-founder and chief technical engineer of id Software. He admits to being a long-time rocketry enthusiast".
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
Carmack's vehicle does.
That's one reason I chose 200km rather than 100km for my amateur rocketry prize. I'm pretty sure SC's and XCor's aerodynamically-limited approach would both lose in a race to 200km because they aren't really "space" vehicles.
Carmack's vehicle is.
I'm tempted to change my prize award to be private rather than amateur so that I can give it to Carmack's team. The problem is that my goal was, and is, to make space accessible to much lower levels of capital than even Carmack's group has expended -- which is already phenomenally low by aerospace standards.
Carmack's accomplishment, with his simplified fuel and system, is more profound than anything that has come along from the aerospace business since the hybrid rocket motor back in the 60s. Sadly -- compared to the golden age of aviation -- that's still not saying much. Carmack is, howeer, bound to inspire teams capable of running a modern day "Wright's bike shop" -- and that is saying much.
Seastead this.
They got it to fly under guidance, hover briefly, and land (also under guidance) using its rockets.
This is a hell of a lot more impressive than an unguided model rocket.
You're trolling, of course, but it's a good troll because it exploits a gap in knowledge most people arguing this issue aren't even aware of.
Without taking time to go into a long reply with many examples, suffice it to say that the Framers knew very well the difference between "arms" and "artillery." They specified "arms." Typical military rifles (a flintlock back in the day, an assault rifle today) are fine. Military weapons of serious, if not mass, destruction (a cannon back in the day, a nuke today) are not fine.
There can be some reasonable disagreement about where, exactly, to draw the line. In the old days, all artillery required horses to drag it and a crew to serve it. Nowadays, an RPG is a one-person weapon. Thus, the old criteria of "man-portability" may no longer be relied on to draw a bright line between arms and artillery. Where the line is to be drawn is a fine thing for politicians to debate into the wee hours, but it doesn't inform this discussion. FWIW, I think we do a very good job of drawing that line, today. Automatic weapons are very heavily regulated and taxed and the owners are seriously investigated before being given permission to acquire them. Less militarily-capable weapons get less regulation. More capable weapons draw more scrutiny. (Hell, if you want it and can afford it, you can, as a private citizen, own, operate, and shoot out of a fully-operational fighter plane with multiple functional machine guns. But you'd better be rich and have plenty of time and patience to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops.)
In summary, then:
There's a right to bear arms.
There's no right to bear artillery.
Simple, huh?
I was looking around to see if they used open source software to do the simulations mentioned in the article, this sourceforge page seems to be a likely candidate for the control software. I haven't fully explored the site yet, but it looks like they are still in the alpha stage and only have a cvs repository running. I'd like to know if there is any simulation software out there so I could explore it. (or for other people to explore it) Anyone have an idea where I could find some?
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
What's up with Dick Rutan at XCor and Burt Rutan at Scaled Composites? Both companies are working on rockets, with Scaled's SpaceShipOne due to hit 100Km very soon. Are Dick Rutan and Burt Rutan related? Seriously, anybody know? I never put the two together until the parent post here mentioned Dick Rutan being associated with XCor. I thought Rutan... I know that name, but I thought he was with Scaled Composites. Then I learned that there are 2 Rutans. Any relation? Just curious. Maybe the Rutans just have the "rocket scientist" gene! :)
A few weeks ago they crashed a smaller prototype during testing when something went haywire. Then they show up a few weeks later with a bigger craft that performs perfectly.
The guidance is impressive, it equivelent to having a computer balancing a broom stick in real time.
Remember the govt's VTOL spacecraft that tipped over and blew up on the pad?
I bet if John was funded by paul allens millions he would be as far along as the scaled composits team. The fact that he has gotten this far with far less money is also a impressive feat.
Got Code?
That would explain why you were so slow.
Or maybe you only had one hand to type with?
In Australia (where I now live) they draw the line at automatic or semi-automatic weapons. Anything more powerful can't be stored in an individual's home (it has to be stored at a police station or shooting club). I think that is the most sensible policy, but as you said, where to draw the line is debatable.
Australia also has mandatory licenses for firearms, but that is a separate issue.
"These days, you dont have to be a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist."
John Romero of Daikatana fame also had a much-hyped launch, but his ship was bloated and delayed for months and could only reach escape orbit at 10 frames per second.
This is a surprisingly lame attempt at the X-Prize. A hydrogen peroxide engine is a terrible choice for propulsion. The propellant is dangerous and and has low specific impulse. It has been mainly used for thrusters in the past. It is not even the best choice for that. Bipropellant thrusters now predominate. Any high power rocket modeller can show better than this. One wonders why he chose to publicize the event, considering the upcoming flight of Burt Rutan's vehicle. That is what I call a serious attempt.
an ill wind that blows no good
They are indeed brothers.
Armadillo uses peroxide as a mono-propellant. Peroxide needs a catalyst to decompose fast enough to be a problem so if the rocket falls over and spills it's contents out onto the ground there will not be an enormous explosion. If the guidance goes haywire, then they are going to be at risk for a fair distance. They may have judged that it is actually safer being closer to the takeoff/landing as that way a rogue rockey would not have the time to build up any dangereous lateral speed...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Somehow I don't think the framers were thinking of trailer trash gun nuts and wanna be gangsta rappers when they wrote "a well regulated militia"....
But then again I don't live in the US so I don't care if you USians shoot each other at a rate of roughly 10000/year over your precious 2nd amendment...
This means that he coded a real-life physics engine. Other's have done like things but from what I've read Carmack is obsessive over the perfection of his engines.
Did anyone else here think of that old Lander game when you saw it plant itself back on the ground?
You also are forgetting that they have been doing captive launch tests for the past several months and have been working with this fuel system for several years, including several spectacular crashes, broken hoses, weld breaks, and just about anything else you could imagine. They knew what they were doing.
/. crowd has a chance to calm down on this story. It shows a strong reaction when mixed with leather. They tried several materials including nylon, cotton, denim (I know, cotton with a tighter weave), and several other fabrics. I guarentee there was absolutly no leather anywhere near the launch that day.
BTW, if you want to see something dangerous with Peroxide, check out their material tests video. I would include the link but the site has been slashdotted. Check it out when the
This choice of a propellant is a testament to private enterprise and how manned rocket flight can be made much safer than NASA is willing to admit. Had this been an O2/Kerosene rocket instead (like the Saturn V 1st stage), the original poster would have been correct. Get several miles away from the launch pad, preferably in a concrete bunker that is mostly buried in the ground.
For all practical purposes, you have the right to bear arms provided that those arms will not seriously impede the government when they decide to get rid of you.
Note, this is not what the founders intended, but they didn't forsee a gargantuan standing army and our modern militarized police forces.
Please note, I am a firm believer in the right to bear arms, but unless you also have the small, weak government envisioned by the Founding Fathers it is not a useful check on tyranny. (As the modern United States of America should prove to any doubters.)
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Except, back in the day, there were privately owned cannon and even privately owned, armed merchant ships and privateers.
Should RPGs be allowed?
How about flamethrowers?
What about weapons with a large "field of effect"?
Should automatic handguns be allowed?
The line is very hard to draw.
The material tests were done using a higher concentration of peroxide, IIRC. John is on record in sci.space.tech saying that they have since gone to a lower concentration of peroxide combined mixed with alcohol. This was in part of this was due to the difficulties he had obtaining high concentrations of peroxide, but eliminating the risk of explosion & lowering the temperature of the reaction were also important considerations.
With the concentration of peroxide they use now, there is no chance of an explosion, so shrapnel is not a major risk.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Or at least give them great lift.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Happens all the time...
preface: This is a joke
John Carmack always gets +5 when he posts something. It's not even a question, moderators are drawn to give up those points like a heroin addict looking to shoot up when they see his name.
I think one day JC is going to just put "I farted, it stanks" and hit OK by accident, and then see the following on the comment:
+1 Insightful
+1 Funny
+1 Interesting
+1 Informative
And you know they will, because the people behind
.plan is regular reading material for many) -- one of the main things that OSS adherents want to see in the software world.
these outfits are the same types behind SCO and
Enron.
John Carmack has written some of the most groundbreaking entertainment software out there.
He has donated his old engines to the world, GPLing them.
Id has stayed small and privately-owned deliberately, and avoided the problems with "shareholder short-term return issues" that so many people complain about.
He has spent extensive amounts of time and effort doing volunteer code on 3d drivers for XFree86, allowing Linux and BSD folks to enjoy 3d games. He used his influence to help get Linux and BSD folks the games that they have today.
He has pushed hard for technological improvements in the GPU arena, and has done consumer education on GPU features. He is famously open about what he is working on and his thoughts (the Carmack
And you call him one of the same types of people behind SCO and Enron? That is not only absurd, it's an attack on one of the better men in the software world. I question whether *you* have done as much for society.
May we never see th
You're right that there's nothing that new about hydrogen peroxide fuel. What is new, apparently, is using a weaker solution (50% peroxide rather than 90%).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I find it rather amusing that you mention doom 3 in a post about the rocket... I suppose to satisfy those curious geeks that would rather pay attention to a video game than a possible historic moment in technology.
:-)
A question that falls between the two though... since you seem to be working on both (and where do you find the time, man), do you find the knowledge of one can help the other? Game physics aren't quite the same as real-world, but there are probably some simularities. I'll go with the assumption that you were involved in creating the software to general launch "test scenarios" - which is a more fun project?
It's amazing to have somebody who was/is a game-geek cult hero go on to be involved with somethink like a true rocket launch... and I'd imagine you learn a lot at it. Maybe you can add an armadillo easter-egg into D3 somewhere
I don't think there's a huge business in suborbital hops. Cheap payloads to orbit, maybe, but they're going to have to scale up their design a hell of a lot to be able to do that. John Carmack is a rich guy, but I don't think he's rich enough to pay for the development on his own, and finding investors in new space technology has been damned hard to do.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
why else would someone make a game about monsters invading earth from hell, and the humans in the game fled to space, and makes rockets that try to make it to space?
quick, time to get your BFG's
December 20, 2003 notes
The reason being that parachute has failure mode (premature deployment) which may possibley cause damanage on the ground in much wider area. But comparing to landing parachute, it is such a dynamic control that it MUST be landed by computer. How many of you trust your programming enough to put your life solely depending on it? Me? Hell no.
It's better to draw the line at automatic weapons. Semi-automatic weapons are just plainly no more dangerous than simple bolt-action repeating rifles. But the types of people who ban guns are not the types of people who are knowledgeable about them anyway.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Come on, more FUD please! Your attempt at a troll is pathetic!
It it just me, or does the landing of that thing look a little odd...? The last second or so, when it drops sharply to the ground and then wiggles looks like somebody placing a chess piece on the board...looks like it's dropping way too fast to have what appears to be zero shock absorption at the landing. And whats with that little wiggle, anyway, when it's already on the ground?
I'm sure there's some reasonable explanation, but it looks like a bad animation, or a liftoff run backwards.
-fister
From what I've seen, Armadillo definitely practices safe rocketry.
On Monday ins't SpaceShipOne attempting to go to 100km?
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Do you remember the text at the end of doom1?
Carmack in space could be a baad baad thing.
It's not getting up that's the problem, it's coming down from orbit. Going up is proving easier and doable. Coming down should work as well. Your problem is where you land if something goes wrong. It's not the cost of the craft, it's the safety of the crew that's expensive.
Only governments and large companies can field the rescue effort required for accidents. Most of the world's surface is ocean and private rescue is still unlikely. US astronauts, from the beginning, were trained to survive for days on land and at sea. This was despite having the entire US Navy waiting for them with good radar contacts around the world. The world is a large place and it's easy to get lost in it while no one is watching. At the moment, I doubt that a reasonable rescue could be fielded by anything but government or a cooperative effort of all the world's oil companies. I have my doubts about the oil companies even if they wanted a launch.
While we can and should expect the world's governments to share tracking information, you still want to have rescue waiting all around the world. Just imagine yourself having to ditch into the middle of the Indian Ocean. This is going to remain an expensive obstacle until space flight is common enough for people to make a living at rescue and facilities are built.
Don't get me wrong, private space will come and it's a great thing to work on. We should simply be aware of the larger problems before we call suborbital flight an existence proof of private space. The Wright brother's were a better proof of commercial aviation. I envy those lucky few who get paid to work on private space ventures.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
A theoretical conversation between John Carmack the astronaut and ambassador Zarvox of Omicron Persei 8
Zarvox: Greetings earthling. We come in peace. What is it that you do on your planet?
Carmack: I make computer games where you run around and kill aliens.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Carmack is a celebrity among geeks. We all have people we admire. Even geek tribes have leaders.
Obviously, Joe Schmo is not going to know him, but we do. It is fine that you may resent him, but you should also respect the fact that living the geek dream is something that we all aspire to doing... but for one circumstance or another, we haven't been lucky enough to do it.
So give Carmack some friggin' props for at least pressing a little bit of the envelope and being a pioneer. In a world where technology is everywhere, he is pushing the barrier. Respect that.
Personally, I have always been dissappointed my whole life that I couldn't wake up, suit up, get in the airlock, and go out and weld space stations with my hands for a living. I think all of us geeks are upset for not being born in a more advanced civilization than we already are, or not having been born with enough money to get all the education we want.
He is at least using his cash for a useful hobby. Some day there will be normal use space travel. Damn if I can't wait for those days. Think, modern commerce in space... instead of spy sattelites and weapons platforms. It sounds a whole lot better than what is going on now.
Damn you innovators! Damn you all!
I find your design interesting because of its applicability to a manned Mars mission. I had done some research on the subject and believed that a small rocket like your own might be most suitable, though I had an ablative heat shield in mind (which would remain on the Martian surface to reduce take off weight). Armadillo's rocket does not rely on a thick earth atmosphere to gain altitude, nor does it require any prepared launching area (to my knowledge) unlike aircraft with their tarmacs. It's simple, conventional and would be easily tended to far from civilization, and most importantly it looks like it will work.
It seems that your craft fills a niche of its own, that of an adaptable vehicle capable of reaching space from a very wide variety of environments with little requirements, something quite desperately needed for further manned solar exploration.
(Now if only the Martian in-situ fuel production could be nailed down, then a large portion of the technical hurdles will have been passed...)
weather permitting - hop in your winnebagos and drive on down to Mojave to see it yourself:
m
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/index.ht
So as I understand it he has to fly twice in two weeks to claim the prize?
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
should your life be allowed? (You don't control your own right to die in the USA anymore)
should you be able to say what your saying without the Gestapo executing you? or holding you criminally culpable for saying certain things (Dmitri Skylarov, ROT13 - that wasn't screaming "fire!" in a movie theater)
should we search your home without a warrant and look for illegal arms, drugs, porn. should we just plant it there and nail your ass anyway? (Most warrants are issued for "probable cause" or various loopholes that allow people to be storm troopered Elian Gonzalez style, Waco, ruby ridge)
should we electrocute and drug you to confess (typical police tactics are to "befriend" the criminal and to make you feel like its "okay" to talk, they even wanted to get rid of Miranda rights reading)?
should we turn your house into an army barracks for no reason for no compensation (this doesn't happen because the army is huge - so do we need it anymore?)?
should we force you to waive your rights to a jury trial? should we have juries (jury selection is a rigged farce most of the time, but its better than a tribunal. we should try fucking paying jurors)?
should we have hidden accusers (rape trials are a joke right now)?
did you know a dispute of $20 or more grants a right to trial by jury? its in the constitution. how about that? next time Verizon fucks you, you'll see that that right is fucking WALKED ON AND PISSED ON AND WE GET FUCKED. We cant take down Verizon over a $20 dispute. Because constitution has been treasonized.
i think the death penalty is cruel punishment. but people want revenge. another constitutional right redefined. (i take it that means the government should never be able to kill your or hurt you, and killing is the ultimate for of hurt)
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. Diane Feinstein should be imprisoned forever for treason against this. California and others have assaulted the constitution and used public office to commit treason, and while the death penalty is still on the books, hey should be hung by gallows in a public square by patriots in a militia!
1934. Tommy Guns banned. Why? Because a total of two officers were shot and the country lost its rights to FA gun ownership.
1968 Spurious gun classification is born, foreign made guns banned.
1986. Reagan regrettably signs your right to purchase what the police purchase into oblivion.
1994. Clintoon and his roving band of socialists commit treason on the highest level by allowing capricious gun categories that have no regard to function.
2020. Guns banned. Free press banned. Free speech banned. Warrants no longer needed. Megacorps can murder civilians (now known as plebeians) without recourse. RFID, chips and tracking devices implanted in all people. Cameras everywhere. Cars banned. Extensive travel banned.
You see the hippies hated nuclear power and created the oil mafia.
The hippies hated guns and created precedent to take a Inalienable Bill of Right away.
Now the leftists have opened the door for both Communist and Fascists and Radical NWO/UN socialists to take everything from us. All hail our new masters, including George Soros.
The founding fathers would have wanted one of us to murder George Soros. Now we can't, we are all unarmed pussies subjected to his treason-treacherous ways. Pretty soon echelon, NSA and all sorts of carnivoring internet bots will register my hatred of him and report me to the gestapo. And I'll be unarmed and sodium amatoled to speak. And I will die with a needle in my arm!
Point: All lines fuck you, and serve the masters of you.
In related news, the Mesquite Sheriff's department took a report from Little Billy Shumacker who's model rocket was stolen by a man with glasses who tried to offer him the cheat codes for 'god mode' for doom 3 in exchange.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Didn't the Van Halen brothers have an uncle who was a physicist at the University of Iowa, who discovered radiation belts from the Explorer 1 ionization detector?
I am sure the Hunstville Germans had their very staid, Lutheran wives, but the astronauts, even though they had engineering college degrees, these guys were first of all military jet pilots, and I always thought that fighter pilots attracted the sort of women who hung out with race car drivers.
Who cares about John Romero now that Stevana dumped his ass? She was the only reason anyone paid attention to him in the first place. She was a hott babe. Now he's got that tubby chick from eastern europe. Transylvania, no less. What's her name? Racula?
It's good to see things looking up for John Carmack however. He's the real reason that FPS games exist in the first place.
This is the standard response from your typical slashdot idiot whenever they read criticism of any kind. What about the fact that I don't have Bill Gates billions? Fact is Carmack has more money (and graphics programming ability) than sense. His amateurish experiments are not noteworthy and diminish more serious efforts of other competitors.
Oh ya. I have progressed to a 4 foot model using 2 G engines. It flies to 3000' and exceeds the speed of sound in flight. You can find commercial gasoline/hydrogen-peroxide-water fueled models that fly to 6000'. Perhaps Carmack should have bought one of those and made a press release.
an ill wind that blows no good
Compassionate conservatism?
So to them this about more than the 10 million dollars?
Agreeing with your reply to the jealous wanna-be's out there that have the nerve to give this guy crap!
(NO shortage of lazy dolt wanna be's/poseurs out there that sure can hand out criticism (& the ones given out to this guy here? Heck, they are not worth a damn even: NO substance!))
Those that tried to give him static? Well, you sure hand out the bullshit, but have yoiu done ANYTHING in this field noted by anyone (other than their Mom because she realizes she has a rebo on her hands) or publication in this field even??
Probably not!
Oh, a few might code & all that, but there is a BIG diff. between knowing syntax & having the guts to go out & make something of yourself thru it as well as work hard to do so.
You may know all the syntax in the world, but if you have no creativity or drive?
That's not worth squat! Anyone can talk about things, it's quite another to do them!
(The people who give him a hard-time or try to in this post? They ARE losers, plain & simple, just trying to get the goat of a winner in this world in Mr. Carmack here I think! Thank goodness most folks realize this...)
APK
P.S.=> I truly DISLIKE people that try to argue with or criticize success... they have MAJOR issues (same thing I see with Bill Gates getting busted on out here online... takes nerve, & an idiot to do, because if you have not done better? You should keep your mouth shut! One day, you may find in REAL life someone will pound it shut, & you may be out a few teeth in the doing of it!)... apk
A variety of responses:
We don't expect to win the X-Prize, both because Burt probably has it in the bag, and we are behind schedule. We still plan on continuing our development, because our designs are nearly an order of magnitude cheaper to fabricate and operate than Space Ship One, and orders of magnitude matter. If SS1 crashes on Monday, we will throw more time and resources at an attempt, because there really is no other contender, but it will be a long shot.
We could have flown an unguided rocket to very high altitudes a long time ago, but we have instead concentrated on control systems, which is where the important work needs to be done. A team that was busy flying rockets to hundreds of thousands of feet altitude, then decided to add a guidance and control system to their rockets would be in for many rude surprises at high energy levels.
This isn't immediately obvious, but an X-Prize class vehicle pretty much requires an active control system (a trained pilot with appropriate controls is also an active control system). A short burn time rocket, like the recent CSXT 100 km shot, can live with just aerodynamic stabilization (note that it also landed 20 miles away), but the G forces are far too high for people. As the burn time lengthens with lower acceleration forces, the vehicle will gravity turn away from vertical, making it almost impossible to keep a 60 second burn time even accelerating upwards.
People that harp on about propellant specific impulse in the context of suborbital rockets are like programmers that obsessively optimize a function that isn't a hot spot. The goal of a rocket ship is not to deliver specific impulse, it is to move a payload reliably and cost effectively. Isp can always be traded away for mass fraction, and quite often you can improve operability or reliability by doing so. With our new vehicle designs using a single engine and jet vanes instead of four differentially throttled engines we are more likely to consider trading some engine and system complexity for performance, but issues like the requirement for deep throttling still make it a complex decision.
I do Armadillo work on Tuesdays, weekends, and late at night. At Id lately I have been working on next-generation rendering technology while the rest of the company manages the Doom beta process.
I don't issue press releases. I just publicly write about what I am working on, and other people find it noteworthy enough to talk about. All of our development work, including the dead ends and mistakes, is fairly well documented on the Armadillo Aerospace website.
John Carmack
HEY... IT'S A JOKE! Bet you feel like an idiot now.
Semi-auto weapons are much more dangerous then bolt-action weapons for two basic reasons. First of all, with a bolt-action weapon you have to use one of your hands to reload the weapon. In doing so, you loose aim and thusly, have to spend a extra time to re-aim the weapon. Just try firing 10 rounds into a target with a semi-automatic weapon vs a bolt-action and you'll see the difference. The semi-automatic is at least twice as fast.
Now the second reason is a little different. With a semi-automatic weapon, after firing a shot, there is always a live round in the chamber. This makes semi-automatic weapons far more prone to accidental firings. With a bolt/lever/pump action, the new round only gets placed into the chamber when you put it there. So long as the shooter has some intelligence and doesn't load a new round when not required, there are no accidental firings. The problem with semi-automatic weapons is that they don't give you this option. (But granted, a gun in the hands of an idiot is dangerous regardless of it's type.)
William
Semi-auto weapons are much more dangerous then bolt-action weapons for two basic reasons. First of all, with a bolt-action weapon you have to use one of your hands to reload the weapon. In doing so, you loose aim and thusly, have to spend a extra time to re-aim the weapon. Just try firing 10 rounds into a target with a semi-automatic weapon vs a bolt-action and you'll see the difference. The semi-automatic is at least twice as fast.
This may surprise you, but I have. And it's a lot easier to get more accuracy with the bolt-action. If you HAVE to aim again after each shot, you're going to be more accurate, and accuracy is a lot more dangerous than a high rate of fire.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Please note, I am a firm believer in the right to bear arms, but unless you also have the small, weak government envisioned by the Founding Fathers it is not a useful check on tyranny. (As the modern United States of America should prove to any doubters.)
I don't think this is entirely true. While it may not have been envisioned by the framers, even with a very powerful military, weapons in the hands of the people can help keep politicians in line, somewhat. The reason for this is that one person, with a gun, and enough drive to kill a politician, is probably going to get the job done. If the politician has done enough things to piss more than one person off, to the point of wanting to kill them, then that politician should probably be very sure he has a current will. To me, the idea of revolt being the prime deterent to tyrany has shifted to the threat of being killed by one determined person with a gun. Even in recent history the president, arguably the most protected person in office, was shot (Regan). Granted the shot wasn't fatal, but it was still life threatening.
Also, this type of argument assumes a couple of things:
1. The revolt isn't started in the military. If this were to happen, things would just get messy, quick.
2. The revolt is not on a massive country wide scale. For this, look at Vietnam. Its very clear that the US had a very clear technological advantage. However, the US military was fighting the whole penesula. People from both North and South Vietnam didn't want the US forces there, or at best didn't care. Identifying the enemy was very difficult. Also, the Vietnimesse were very determined to push the US out, they would take huge losses and not let up. I tend to think that the same could happen in the US, if the government got bad enough. Granted, the likelyhood of it actually happeneing is very low. But, if enough people are willing to fight and die for something, they can overcome a technologicly superior force.
3. Consider who the military would be killing, US citizens. If the revolt is a popular revolt, the US government would absolutly cripple itself by putting the revolt down. Also, this always begs the question of how the soldiers in the military would react to having to kill US citizens. Though, the military does do a good job of keeping its soldiers from thinking about such things.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Dick flew Burt's aircraft, Voyager, around the world unrefuelled in 1984 (or so). Jeanna Yeager (no relation to Gen. Chuck Yeager) was the other pilot.
Burt and Dick are brothers.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Interesting theory, but I really don't think so. Do you really think the National Guard shouldn't have artillery?
The founders never intended for individuals to have an unrestricted right to bear arms. The second amendment only was to restrict the Federal government from passing gun control, not the states. The fourteenth amendment generally extended the limitations on the Federal government to the States as well.
The most reasonable interpretation of all this, to me, is that the constitution, as it currently exists, guarantees individuals the right to bear any and all arms, up to and beyond tactical nuclear weapons.
I'm not an idiot, though. Actually allowing people this kind of firepower would be certain recipe for disaster. Since I hate misreading the constitution just because so few of us like what it really says, I strongly believe we need a constitutional amendment that would rewrite the second amendment to something close to what it is currently interpreted as.
My buddy up here in Washington State bought an AK47 fully automatic for $600 dollars no questions asked high on coke...seriously investigated??? no. bought from an actual gunshop...yes.
;)
FWIW, he went bankrupt and had to pawn the damn thing
Life is like pants... fit in or you don't fit in.
Thank goodness. I wouldn't want someone like Timothy McVeigh to get any ideas.
Sorry, I think you misunderstood me. I have no doubt that some soldiers think about blowing up civilians. What I meant is that the US military does a good job of keeping the soldiers from thinking about the fact that they are killing civilians. Afterall, such thoughts are dangerous in a military force.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
You're splitting too fine a hair.
"International arms dealers" don't confine themselves to rifles. The term predates firearms -- consider "coat of arms" -- and means merely "weapons".
The phrase you're looking for, restricted just to man-portable firearms, is "small arms".
Dictionary.com says:
arm
A weapon, especially a firearm: troops bearing arms; ICBMs, bombs, and other nuclear arms.
Lest you object that the modern usage is different, I'll note that the Federalist Papers include such phrases as "Hannibal had carried her [Carthage's] arms into the heart of Italy", referring to the entire offensive force of a nation; or "the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations". I somehow doubt the "arms" of foreign nations in this case meant just the muskets, and not the "artillery" or, for that matter, sabers.
More evidence of "Founder usage" can be found in Federalist No. 29:
It seems fairly clear here that "arms" is not some subset of weaponry, and also fairly clear that the "large body of citizens" is expected to be equipped in a manner essentially the same as the standing army.
The "gap in knowledge" would appear to be on your side. You've manufactured a distinction which does not, in fact, exist.
It's illegal to purchase an Automatic Weapon in the US without a tax-stamped permit from the US Treasury department. The US Treasury department no longer issues such permits. The only way to legally purchase an automatic weapon in the US is through a private citizen, and have them transfer their permit.
There is no f*cking way you can get out of the Mamsteen belt. It's too dank up there, and too much RF noise; you'll feel like kicking air and bobbing your head for no reason. I hear Loverboy belt causes eating disorders and stretchmarks... And the Nirvana belt causes random exploding of brains.
They said the same think aboot man traveling nowhere fastd. Then I ssays, yous knownk: by my standink here, the planet's orbiting is also spinning on an axis which rotates 1,000 Miles Per-Hour.
Bu en terms of speed, I ssays I mustd agree that time doth not exist. As I ssay to efery highway military police state officeur: "I don know how fastd I was moving, bu I knownk where I have been."
And yea, a plane can fly 100Km; in a vaccum, we knoweth outside of this atmosphere on planet Earth as "Space: theee final frontier; these are the voyages of the sarship Enterprise"
What did you have to pay her? Or did you become
a Linux Zelot after the wedding vows? Talk about
midnight pumpkins.
If I could moderate in this discussion, I'd throw a point your direction.
I call BS.
You're saying that two different FFL holders engaged behavior so massively stupid and illegal it beggars description. Absent proof, there's just no way I can accept that.
OTOH, if you're just repeating a story told to you by your buddy (Did you ever shoot this AK? Ever even see it? And would you know what you were seeing if you did?) then I hate to tell you, dude, but your buddy is FOS, big time.
Subject to Class III restriction, I'd say yes.
We already allow flamethrowers. They are virtually unregulated in the U.S.
You're gonna have to define that a bit further. We already allow (again, subject to some tracking) dynamite to be privately purchased, stored and used. Did you have something else in mind?
We already do. Semi-automatics are allowed as normal firearms. Full-auto handguns are allowed subject to normal Class III restrictions. I'm not sure what you're asking about.
Maybe, but I didn't have much trouble with the examples you threw out. Clarify that "field of effect" question and I can probably bat a thou on questions like these. :-)