Slashdot Mirror
NASA Prize Program Releases Workshop Report
colonist writes "NASA's prize competitions program, Centennial Challenges, held its first workshop June 15-16, 2004 to brainstorm ideas, define rules and set prize amounts. The post-workshop report (PDF) is available. New ideas for challenges should be sent to <ccideas@hq.nasa.gov>. The Centennial Challenges program is supported by the X Prize Foundation, the Aldridge Commission and some members of Congress, but not all."
The question is, are prizes of 10 to 30 million USD enough for corporations to spend that much or more developing space tech? Would it be cheaper than NASA developing the same things in-house? Or would the prize money be better spent on NASA projects? I'd rather my tax dollars not go for just corporate handouts.
Let's not forget that one can hate his government, but love his country.
I know you're trolling, but maybe some more manned exploration would be worthwhile. Just think, we could send people to orbit Titan and look for signs of life. It is around the triple point of Methane much as we are around the triple point of water, CH4 could be the central to Titanian biology. Just don't try to land on Europa...
http://persianews.on.nimp.org/?u=Tar_Baby
NASA loves wheels.
They love to re-invent them.
Why don't they just use a retro-fitted nuclear submarine?
Oh yes, I went there.(stewie-ism)
Remove the electric motors, repurpose the ballast as sheilding or water/env resources. and start training some divers to do EVA in NASA "stay-puff" suits.
Put a sturdy self-contained, time-tested vehicle for transporting humans in an imicial environment into orbit. Compared to 3900 atmospheres, space is a cakewalk (with a cute caller who doesn't mind tounge-kissing you and cupping your ass too when she hands you the prize).
Railgun that bastard into orbit without any squishy humans in it, or ask/pay Burt Rutan to make a really-fricken huge composite slingshot--just get it up there.
Then send the crew up later.
Retrofit the damn thing with some easily replaced external chemical/ion thrusters and fuel it up and go. Shouldn't take much reprogramming to interface to the thrusters with the existing computer control systems.
Once it's powered up, everything is there. What the hell is so hard about that?
Someone should make a damn movie about it. Knowing the guys that work on Anime, they already have and I'm just too poor to bother looking.
There NASA. Simple enough? And free. Hell, let's GPL that puppy someone.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
Furthermore, they either needed a vehicle with *all* of the capabilities of the shuttle to fulfill all of the future missions planned (mainly the massive assembly of the ISS) or they needed to keep the shuttle going at the same time as it's replacement until all of the missions had been completed. And they didn't have the money for two different spacecraft being operated at the same time.
I think the real problem is they simply don't *know* what the lifetime of a shuttle is. They were designed for 100 or so uses, but with a launch every week or two. And none of the real problems with the shuttle are actually things failing because of age, it's either disaster creeping up on them or a continuing increase in maintenence costs.
Gentoo Sucks
And none of the real problems with the shuttle are actually things failing because of age, it's either disaster creeping up on them or a continuing increase in maintenence costs.
Increase in maintenance costs is precisely because of age. As things get older, unexpected problems have a greater probability of showing up.
I agree that the shuttle disasters were not because of wear and tear on the vehicle. But, no matter the source of the disaster, it vastly weakened the argument that the shuttle was still safe.