Rules Set for $50 Million America's Space Prize

An anonymous reader wrote in to say that The rules have been set for Robert Bigelow's $50 million 'America's Space Prize'. The gist of it is that the winner needs to get a crew of five people up 400km, complete two orbits of the Earth, and then do it again within 60 days. I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!

Comments

Better Idea

[AmericanInKiev]

Prize for an effecient Wind Power Station.

Re:Better Idea

[ThomasFlip]

where's the excitement in that ?

Re:Better Idea

[AmericanInKiev]

Space Travel is exciting - but everyone who wants to experience space is already a scuba diver - and the experience is largely the same.

Cost effective Wind Power (Kilowatts/Construction costs) would mean the end of middle east conflict, global warming, rural poverty in developing countries, lung disease in Beiging.

How else could you solve so many problem with a 10 million dollar prize. If Burt Rutan was focused on a lightweight scalable wind turbine - My guess is we'd be there by now. Instead we've invented a private version of the vomit comet.

AIK

Re:Better Idea

[Ender_Stonebender]

No.

The basic problem is not that we do not have enough power, it is that we have too many people stuffed in a limited volume (I'm going to avoid having to have two meanings of "space" in this comment, dammit!). Getting to space efficiently allows us to have a larger volume in which humanity can live.

It doesn't solve every problem in the world, but being to run very very far away from your problems helps. It's how the U.S.A. got started.

--Ender

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sure, and the moment you start sucking gigawatts of wind power out of the atmosphere, you'll be shifting the climate in new and interesting ways. Then you'll get a new generation of enviro-nutters on your case.

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats an easy one. Put them around the white house, and you'll get plenty of hot air.

Re:Better Idea

[ceejayoz]

The end of Middle East conflict? In your dreams...

When the Arab nations realize they can't eat sand and can't afford to import food because their oil is worthless, there'll be hell to pay.

Re:Better Idea

[AmericanInKiev]

As long as we burn sulfer products into the air we breathe we have enough power - Ah ha - we have a different definition of enough power.

The truth is we have more surface area that resources - resources which are all power related.

If Africa had power enough to run reverse osmosis they could produce fresh water at will, pump it to wherever, and we could build las vegas's in the Sahara.

sustainable power is a better way to expand habitable acreage than space colonialization.

AIK

Re:Better Idea

[Laser Lou]

Prize for an effecient Wind Power Station

Anyone who can build one would already have a money-making machine in their hands. The incentive is already there.

Re:Better Idea

[magarity]

How else could you solve so many problem with a 10 million dollar prize. If Burt Rutan was focused on a lightweight scalable wind turbine - My guess is we'd be there by now. Instead we've invented a private version of the vomit comet.

Let's see:
Invention #1, if it can be invented, will provide cheap and unlimited energy to the world population. Profit value: Gajillions.
Invention #2, if it can be invented, will provide trips to low Earth orbit for the lucky few who can afford it. Profit value: a few million a year.

Seems to me the key phrase here is "if it can be invented" and not "10 million dollar 'prize' for inventing it". There is a heck of a lot more of a prize in cash terms waiting for invention #1 without a group of hobby enthusiasts offering anything. Doesn't appear you thought before you ranted.

Re:Better Idea

[nels_tomlinson]

Cost effective Wind Power (Kilowatts/Construction costs) would mean the end of middle east conflict, global warming, rural poverty in developing countries, lung disease in Beiging.

We're agreed that cost-effective wind power would be a good thing, however unlikely it may be. I'm not sure that I agree with your list of miracles it would cause.

the end of middle east conflict,
Does that mean that you think the Muslims are fighting the Jews and Christians for oil? Better think again: they've been killing each other, and us, since about 624 AD.

global warming,
You might be right on this one, but us Northeners like global warming.

rural poverty in developing countries,
Wish you were right on this. It should help, but poverty is caused more by government corruption and lawlessness than by lack of infrastructure. Given good government, Uganda would soon be more like Canada than Uganda. Unfortunately, no one knows how to ``give'' good government.

lung disease in Beiging.
This one we can agree on.

Re:Better Idea

[hoggoth]

> When the Arab nations realize they can't eat sand and can't afford to import food because their oil is worthless, there'll be hell to pay.

And if their oil is worthless, they will pay for a war... how?

Re:Better Idea

[TummyX]

Cost effective Wind Power (Kilowatts/Construction costs) would mean the end of middle east conflict


yes, because all the radical islamists want is a cost effective windmill. maybe that's why they're now attacking the dutch? the dutch make great windmills!

Re:Better Idea

[CriX]

Apples and Oranges.

They should pursue both inventions. Why does everyone think that a space program is the entity stopping other inventions from happening? It's not. NASA is not stopping the creation of efficient wind power. God damnit. Bitch about the military's budget instead. Stop messing with the real estate investment opportunity of a lifetime.

Re:Better Idea

[aardvarkjoe]

And if their oil is worthless, they will pay for a war... how?

People were fighting over the middle east for thousands of years before oil even became an issue. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Re:Better Idea

[AmericanInKiev]

Bush protected the Oil Fields - he didn't protect the Weapons stores.

I'm thinking the Christians - under Father Bush - are killing the Muslims over Oil.

but poverty is caused more by government corruption and lawlessness than by lack of infrastructure.

While I agree on this point generally. We could give good infrastructure, that could lead to more education - and i think that is (one way) to give good government.

That and Tourism.

AIK

Re:Better Idea

[DigitalRaptor]

If you like warmer temperatures, please move somewhere else. Global warming may have some short term conveniences, but it brings a host of negatives that I'd rather not see.

The negatives outweight the positives by several orders of magnitude, at the minimum.

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

That already exists and still hasn't changed the fact that wind isn't a reliable source of energy.

Re:Better Idea

[AmericanInKiev]

Like it or not - backward nations - even hateful backward nations such as Sudan - are a limited threat to the rest of the world. Rich hateful nations on the other hand are a pain in the ass.

Sure they've been using the sword for a few millinium. I'm not concerned about the sword - it's the moden warfare - and that is new - and highly dependent on oil wealth.

AIK

AIK

Re:Better Idea

[Harinezumi]

Wind power is not practical for large-scale power generation. Never was, never will be. We already have a clean, efficient, and safe source of power that would last us for centuries even if we we used it for all our power generation needs, and its name is nuclear.

What we really need to do is offer a prize for someone to convince all the myopic NIMBY types to give the pebble bed reactors a try. And yes, if you want to build one in my backyard, go right ahead.

Re:Better Idea

[AmericanInKiev]

Noise.

The earth sucks power out of the wind anyway - trees, mountains etc ... Our ability to change the friction cooeffecient of the earth surface is minial at best - a valid concern given the unintended effects of every other source of power - but bird deaths are a more valid deal-killer than the reverse effect.

AIK

Re:Better Idea

[ceejayoz]

Same way the Palestinians do currently - with blood.

Re:Better Idea

[krymsin01]

Obviously you've never been to Iceland.

Re:Better Idea

[nels_tomlinson]

The negatives outweight the positives by several orders of magnitude, at the minimum.

The Earth has been warm before, and it was good.

From that link:

By 5000 to 3000 BC average global temperatures reached their maximum level during the Holocene and were 1 to 2 Celsius warmer than they are today. Climatologists call this period the Climatic Optimum. During the climatic optimum many of the Earth's great ancient civilizations began and flourished. In Africa, the Nile River had three times its present volume, indicating a much larger tropical region.

From 3000 to 2000 BC a cooling trend occurred. This cooling caused large drops in sea-level and the emergence of many islands (Bahamas) and coastal areas that are still above sea-level today. A short warming trend took place from 2000 to 1500 BC, followed once again by colder conditions. Colder temperatures from 1500 - 750 BC caused renewed ice growth in continental glaciers and alpine glaciers, and a sea-level drop of between 2 to 3 meters below present day levels.

The period from 750 BC - 900 AD saw warming up to 150 BC. Temperatures, however, did not get as warm as the Climatic Optimum. During the time of Roman Empire (150 BC - 300 AD) a cooling began that lasted until about 900 AD. At its height, the cooling caused the Nile River (829 AD) and the Black Sea (800-801 AD) to freeze.

The period 900 - 1200 AD has been called the Little Climatic Optimum. It represents the warmest climate since the Climatic Optimum. During this period, the Vikings established settlements on Greenland and Iceland. The snow line in the Rocky Mountains was about 370 meters above current levels. A period of cool and more extreme weather followed the Little Climatic Optimum. A great drought in the American southwest occurred between 1276 and 1299. There are records of floods, great droughts and extreme seasonal climate fluctuations up to the 1400s.

From 1550 to 1850 AD global temperatures were at their coldest since the beginning of the Holocene. Scientists call this period the Little Ice Age. During the Little Ice Age, the average annual temperature of the Northern Hemisphere was about 1.0 degree Celsius lower than today. During the period 1580 to 1600, the western United States experienced one of its longest and most severe droughts in the last 500 years. Cold weather in Iceland from 1753 and 1759 caused 25 % of the population to die from crop failure and famine. Newspapers in New England were calling 1816 the year without a summer.

Those who don't know history will only repeat the bad parts of it.

Re:Better Idea

[WyerByter]

And that doesn't include all the rare and endagered birds that would be killed trying to fly through the blades. Some animal activist groups are already trying to nix the wind power idea.

Re:Better Idea

[Lumpy]

bah. a wind power station is easy. hell I can make one that does not need to turn into the wind and will operate from all wind directions, PLUS have good power output at low and high Revolution speeds.

How about reducing power consumption first? It's easier and certianly will have the largest benefit to all way before a 99.997% efficient wind,solar,thoughwave power system.

Your fridge, stove, etc does NOT need to use as much power as they currently do. No advances in making them more efficient have been persued cince the american public chooses cheap over efficient every single time.

what would you choose? the standard refridgerator that uses gobs of electricity for $399.95 or the EXACT same item that uses 1/10th the the energy for $2599.95?

I am betting you'll tell the salesman he/she is nuts and buy the cheaper unit.

and yes these super high efficiency appliances do exist. start here alternative energy

There are even more effieiencies that can be gained by adding home automation, something that also is not only ignored by the general consumer but it downright SCARES them. I had to completely remove my system from the last house when I sold it as the prospective buyers were all afraid of it or were putting in bids $15,000.00 less to cover the cost of removing it. (no it does not cost that much to remove it)

Efficient wind power would be neat, but it would be useless if we can not get the gluttony public to start buying efficient appliances and other items first.

Re:Better Idea

[Headcase88]

Heck, wind power, solar power, a toaster that cooks more evenly, anything but another one of these missions that revolve around... revolving around the world.

Re:Better Idea

[tekunokurato]

Yeah, like it's really worse for them than the smog-clogging of our atmosphere.

Re:Better Idea

[AmericanInKiev]

Nuclear generates a lot of heat. Even in the best of worlds, heat pollution would contribute to global warming I would think. Nuclear is destabilizing. Every pinhead nation wants a "nuclear" power station - which is a euphamism for - we want to make a bomb and terrorize the world. You can't share nuclear technology with hateful people - i doubt seriously that a windmill is ever likely to be used for threatening your neighbors.

AIK

Re:Better Idea

[Gadzinka]

Look at it this way: he/them could build another $50M house with 20 bedrooms, 50" plasma display in each room and five swimming pools, instead of funding this prize.

For one, (very) efficient Wind Power Station itself would give immediate cash prize to any inventor. From the market. If it doesn't happen, perhaps it can't be done in foreseable future.

And, perhaps for someone "putting your eggs in more than one basket" is more important goal than taking care of energy distribution. I understand that "worthy goals" are not universal, but you're free to set your own prize, or nag the wealthier of us to set one.

Robert

Re:Better Idea

[sk8king]

Not even a prize for wind power necessarily. Just a prize for alternative power. Oh boy. House level Hydrogen cells [or something] that you charge with wind/solar/stationary bike energy or whatever.

Just get us off the OIL.

Re:Better Idea

[logpoacher]

True - but the trade-routes went through there too, so it was worth fighting for. The only bit that matters in that respect now is the Suez Canal; otherwise, we have lots of alternatives these days for importing Eastern goods!

Re:Better Idea

[Somegeek]

How is this a better idea? Bigelow needs a way to get tourists into orbit to visit his space hotels; his dream. Can you think of a more cost effective why of achieving this goal? A better wind power station would not help one bit.

If you are saying that in general money could be spent on more altruistic goals, then that may be true, but it has no relevance to this conversation. You might as well go bitch at people for spending money on new SUVs instead of funding wind research. It's their money, they can spend it how they wish.

If you truly believe in a prize for wind power then you should found an organization to fund a W-Prize and start stumping for donations, much like the founder of the X-prize did when he wanted to help further space travel. Corporate donations for such a concept might not be that hard to obtain, I can see big oil companies signing up for the good advertising, for example.

Re:Better Idea

[AmericanInKiev]

I think the math suggests that 2000 difference may be better spent on sustainable power generation because it indicates that the affordable-effeciency gains for the current refridgerator have been exploited. If the remaining choice is non-cost effective exploits or more cost effective generation - then the smart money goes with the higher cost/benefit.

AIK

Re:Better Idea

[sevinkey]

bah, both projects have been worked on for a long time because achieving either one would make you our Thomas Edison. He didn't die a poor man and his legacy lives on as GE.

Re:Better Idea

[mmkkbb]

holland is in the middle east now?

Re:Better Idea

[interiot]

And just to pound that point home, the first discoveries of oil in the Middle East were Iran in 1908 and Saudi Arabi in 1938. Compare that to a timeline of Jerusalem where conflict was evident from at least the first century AD.

Curiously enough, the middle east was a place of relatively high tolerance and prosperity during the time of the European "Dark Ages". Though with most of Islam's, Christianity's, and Jadaism's religious cities in the mid-east, it does seem destined to be a place of conflict.

Re:Better Idea

[Gadzinka]

Prize for an efficient Wind Power Station.

Something just hit me.

Perheaps you could put your money where your mouth is? If you are so enviromentally conscious as you claim to be, why not set up your own prize for efficient wind turbine? Is the goal worth $10 for you? Perhaps $100? Why not collect (with other enviromentally conscious people) the $10M and offer your own prize? After all, you'd need just 10,000 people -- I'm sure there are more enviromentalists in your state alone.

But of course, bitching about it on /. is easier and costs nothing. And you can feel that you did something for the enviroment at the same time...

Robert

Re:Better Idea

[JavaLord]

Cost effective Wind Power (Kilowatts/Construction costs) would mean the end of middle east conflict, global warming, rural poverty in developing countries, lung disease in Beiging.

It would also bring peace on earth, and 6 acres a mule for everyone. Just kidding. But seriously, it would bring an end of the petrodollar which would fuck the American economy to no end.

Re:Better Idea

[TummyX]

Duh, no -- that was my point.

Re:Better Idea

[operagost]

Bush protected the Oil Fields - he didn't protect the Weapons stores.

Being as petroleum is Iraq's major export, I would expect this to be a necessity in order to keep Iraqis from starving to death. There was an "Oil for Food" program under the embargo, not "Dates for Food" or "Sand for Food". Actually, it was more like "Oil for Shiny New Palaces", but I digress.

According to most on the left, the USA is not a Christian nation. So why did it become one just to prop up your argument that Christians are killing for oil?

Re:Better Idea

[isorox]

I will give a prize of $100,000,000 (about £52.60 in 4 years time) to anyone who can build a Wind power station that operates at 200% efficency.

Re:Better Idea

[DigitalRaptor]

550 of todays scientists disagree with you. And so do I.

Re:Better Idea

[LWATCDR]

"How else could you solve so many problem with a 10 million dollar prize. If Burt Rutan was focused on a lightweight scalable wind turbine -"
If it was possible. Guess what there are LOTS of efficent wind turbines the probem is they are not "on demand" you get x amount of power for the amount of wind you have if your demand goes up you can not turn up the output.
Other issues are.
They need a clean air path so they can not be located in cities.
They need a constant wind so they do not work everywhere.
They make a LOT of Noise for the amount of power they make.
No one has ever bothered to look at their climatic impact. Yes I have to wonder what will happen if you extract terrawatts of power from the planets wind system.
Wind power is great for certian remote locations and for applications that do not require on demand power, pumping water is a classic use.
Windpower will not end middle east conflicts, global warmin, ruarl poverty, or lung disease in China. It is and will always be a small niche power producer.

Re:Better Idea

[interiot]

I saw a good summary of this on TV the other day... The Middle East has been relatively wealthy at other times in the past as well (eg. especially Istanbul, being placed in the center of trade across the continents). The biggest difference from a religious-extremist standpoint though, is that generation of wealth used to involve a large amount of the population... That is, the leaders had to be mindful of the citizen's happiness, or risk their position of power. Now, with money generated from oil, non-democratic leaders basically don't have to worry about how happy the citizens are, and can leave them poor and starving while they themselves are the primary beneficiaries of the oil. Certainly many in the middle east aren't evil, but this situation at least gives tyrants more comfort whereas normally they'd have to work harder to stay in power. Then the implication was that the ill-will that the poor population feels is sometimes transformed into hatred for the west, rather than directed towards the exploitative leaders.

Re:Better Idea

[bug]

I've got a problem with the premise that space colonization is a solution to overpopulation on Earth. Let's say we wanted to reduce our population by a billion or so... Well, most of the areas in the world with huge population problems aren't the kind of places with the skillsets needed for space colonization, they're in 3rd world countries. Also, can you imagine how much power and resources would be required to move a billion people out of the earth's atmosphere, out of orbit, and safely back down to some other location? It's a ridiculous amount of energy even for something that carries a handful of people to orbit, like a space shuttle. Space colonization doesn't solve any practical problem for the people on Earth, except perhaps obliquely through inventions like Tang, Velcro, and nifty pens that can write in zero gravity. Mind you, I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it, just that it doesn't solve any problem for those of us stuck here.

Re:Better Idea

[DigitalRaptor]

Toasted my links somehow:

250 Scientists

300 Scientists

Re:Better Idea

[Harinezumi]

I think what the original comment meant to say was that if the technology were practical, some corporation would have already invented it because there are massive profits to be had through it, and therefore a $10M prize would not have had much of an effect on the technology's development one way or another.

Because there isn't as much obvious risk-free profit in reaching space, a prize can entice private individuals and companies into pursuing the research by providing money that would cover a significant part of the R&D costs whether or not the final product turns out to be marketable.

Re:Better Idea

[jhimm]

unfortunately, i can't find a link to an archive, but shortly after the X Prize was won, the founder of the X Prize was interviewed on NPR (might have been Talk of the Nation). he talked at length about how one of the fundamental benefits of being able to occupy space is that we would be able to harness so much more energy from space than we can from earth. he seemed to be of the opinion that there was a way to transfer this energy from space, where it was collected, to earth, using some kind of wireless technology. while this might take longer than a wind power station to develop, it would certainly produce far more energy once up and running. (sorry this is so vague, i can't find the archive.)

Re:Better Idea

[malelder]

Cost effective Wind Power (Kilowatts/Construction costs) would mean the end of middle east conflict

Not to be a Troll, but Wind Power will get rid of religion?

Re:Better Idea

[Rei]

Actually, that's wrong. Some of the most concentrated wind power is in cities, due to air being funnelled around buildings. Several designers have taken to incorporating wind turbines into their buildings as a consequence.

And I personally don't find them that noisy. What I do find noisy is when the nearby (gas?) power plant vents steam.

Re:Better Idea

[AmericanInKiev]

Hard to know for sure, but i think my design is Bird Safe.

It uses stretched tyvek surfaces (Think Denver International Airport) and large airfoils moving much slower than a propeller.

I think the nature folks are torn - but they want to see a design which is not a bird blender.

AIK

Re:Better Idea

[JAHA]

I hear what you're saying...however, perhaps creating a new industry might be economically more appealing(and sadly more realistic) than displacing the status quo of an existing industry.

Re:Better Idea

[magefile]

The Earth has been warm before, and it was good.

Uh huh. Regardless of whether or not that's true, the hard part will be the transition period ... flooding, extinction, etc.

Re:Better Idea

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

Wish you were right on this. It should help, but poverty is caused more by government corruption and lawlessness than by lack of infrastructure. Given good government, Uganda would soon be more like Canada than Uganda. Unfortunately, no one knows how to ``give'' good government.

Give them the Canadian government. Canadians are basically good people and would behave without their government.

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really think being in constant freefall around the earth compares with scuba diving? My experience in the latter is very limited - a brief swim with the sharks at the Canberra Aquarium (Australia) - the weightless feeling is certainly there, but movement is quite restrictive and the whole breathing underwater through ones mouth takes a few minutes to get used to.

Re:Better Idea

[MynockGuano]

www.bigassfans.com

Re:Better Idea

[Lumpy]

no, if these appliances were mass produced instead of being a specalized market then the cost to manufacture would drop significantly.

If we were able to cut energy consumption in the average home by a measly 1/3rd the differences in pollutants and energy needs would be significant.

hell it would almost become staggering to the energy comapnies when they would then have a HUGE surplus of energy. imagine being able to cut energy generation by 1/3rd, this would have an equal affect on the pollution generation.

and could happen in 5 years. efficient wind and solar? not a chance even if you have solved the technical and have a demonstratable prototype right now.

the Tip of the Lower pennusla of Michigan has a wind power generation station, 2 GIGANTIC windmills and they want to build a 3rd but keep getting shot down by the ever present NIMBY problem.

changing the items in the people's homes is far easier than trying to convince them to allow you to build a wind generation farm within 100 miles of their home.

Re:Better Idea

[syukton]

[rant]

That's right, hell to pay and they'll have plenty of our money to pay it back to us with. Endless amounts of money are funneled out of the USA and into the Middle East without any real checks or balances. They've got oil, we think we need it. Once we stop thinking we need it, we'll stop buying it, then they'll have a little oil and a whole lot of money. What does one do with a little oil and a lot of money? Well buy/build airplanes that drop bombs of course!

I'm sorry, but the Middle East is unfortunately a land beyond hope. There are too many people with too many conflicting ideas who are willing to kill one another over those ideas. The last part is the key, the part where they're willing to kill over their different ideas. We need to nuke them and turn the whole desert into a giant solar panel before the "conflict" in the Middle East will be resolved--I'm not saying we should, I'm saying that is what it would take for there to be peace in the middle east, as thousand-year wars don't just up and get resolved. By acting in the middle east though, we're no better than they are. We might be in a different PLACE but the whole philosophy is the same, you're forcing your ideas on somebody else by either controlling or killing them. A lot of people over there are after power, and they achieve it through instilling fear and committing murder. I don't know if power gives them a hard-on and they go home and stroke after gunning down some civillians or what, but there's some very strong driving force behind this perpetual power-seeking and idea-forcing. It's probably religious: they think that if they do certain things here they'll get certain things in return later from their deity. The Christians do it too, remember that Christianity CAME from the Middle East.

(Parenthetically, Agnosticism/Athiesm/Religion-without-a-deity-who-g ives-you-cool-stuff-in-the-afterlife has to be the best thing since gays. Gays don't make babies, Athiesm doesn't make terrorists. We need more gay athiests (et al).)

[/rant]

In sum: I totally agree with you.

Re:Better Idea

[hairykrishna]

I wish I had mod points. Nuclear power is the only way forward.

Re:Better Idea

[logpoacher]

Though with most of Islam's, Christianity's, and Jadaism's religious cities in the mid-east [paperlined.org], it does seem destined to be a place of conflict.

Hardly likely, as religion becomes progressively less important, forced back by the tide of reason and rational explanation. Oh, wait ... :-)

Anyway, thanks for the links.

Re:Better Idea

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

There are reactor designs that are basically worthless as far as weapons proliferation.

Heat pollution could be a concern, but can it be any worse than what we have now? It would still be a net gain to lose the atmospheric pollution and only have the heat to worry about... does anyone have anything like real numbers?

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

One can transfer energy from space back to the earth via microwave.

Re:Better Idea

[lostchicken]

As a matter of fact, I'd bet that NASA was helping with development of things like wind power. Most of the research into systems like this rely on Computational Fluid Dynamics, a field that wouldn't be nearly as advanced and mature if it was not for the space program.

Re:Better Idea

[Barnoid]

"If Burt Rutan was focused on a lightweight scalable wind turbine -"

No one has ever bothered to look at their climatic impact.

the way we look at and know about the climatic impact of burning terrawatts of oil and do nothing?

Re:Better Idea

[thinkstoomuch]

Even if no oil was needed for power stations, massive amounts would be needed for transport. And even if the hydrogen economy actually works (centralised non-oil energy production, hydrogen cars), oil would still be valuable as feedstock for plastics / petrochemicals. Oil will never be worthless, because it is prepackaged energy and complexity - it has inherent value.

Re:Better Idea

[iapetus]

Why bother? We all know the huge rubber band will fail to launch your enemies as much as a foot, but as soon as you go over to check what's wrong it'll spring into action and launch you on a path out of the solar system. Might as well just get straight to it...

Re:Better Idea

[Gil-galad55]

Newspapers in New England were calling 1816 the year without a summer. Damn Darkfriends...

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Newspapers in New England were calling 1816 the year without a summer.

This was actually traced to a major 1815 volcanic eruption that spewed dust into the upper atmosphere. This led to short-term global cooling and with it snow in the summer in New England. This may have been compounded by the climatic changes you refer to, but it is out of context in the above article.

Re:Better Idea

[tdemark]

Most new installations are "bird friendly" - larger, slower rotating blades, turbines designed to prevent birds from landing or nesting on the housing, and placement taking into account migratory patterns.

Using this as a reference, there are approximately 180 turbines in use or proposed by this provider. At full capacity, this would account for 1/3 of a percent of the US electrical demand.

Using Altamont Pass (not included in the above calcuation) as a reference, and this page for kill rates, you get about .126 kills / year / turbine. This is a worst case, since it is generally accepted that Altamont Pass has an unusually high kill rate because it was built without taking into consideration migration paths and bird friendly engineering.

So, 180 turbines * 300 (needed to supply the whole US) and you get 54,000 turbines. Which converts to:

54,000 * .126 kills / turbine year = 6804 dead birds a year

Sounds like a lot, right?

Well, according to this (note: facts from a wind energy provider), 57 million birds are killed by automobiles each year, 97 million die from "sudden plate glass deceleration", and 1.5 million die from running into things that aren't even moving.

I don't know about you, but 7000 birds a year to generate all US electricity via a renewable resource with no emissions seems to be a good deal. Especially when it only costs 2.54 cents / kWh above non-green power.

- Tony

Re:Better Idea

[eean]

Prize for an effecient Wind Power Station. ..except wind power systems are already efficient. There's already a lot of money going into wind power, so there's no need to create extra incentive for the wind power companies to do what they're going to do anyway.

Re:Better Idea

[r-e-e-f-99]

What we need is to get a space elevator up and running and then we can hoist up loads of solar panels and beam the energy back down via microwave. Problem solved.

Re:Better Idea

[b-baggins]

Fallacy of appeal to numbers.

100 years ago nearly all physicists agreed that light propagated through something called ether.

Re:Better Idea

[Rei]

The whole bird thing is a red herring. In the US, glass windows kill 100-900 million birds per year. Housecats kill another 100 million. Cars kill 50-100 million. 174 million are killed in collisions with power lines. 67 million are poisoned by pesticides. An unknown number are killed by land development. 4-10 million are killed by communication towers. An unknown number die in stock tanks. 1-2 million die in oil and gas extraction. An unknown number die in logging and mining. An unknown number die in commercial fishing. More than 1000 raptors are electrocuted each year. 100+ million birds are hunted each year.

Wind power kills a tiny amount in comparison to other human activities. About a third of sites studied thusfar have zero recorded bird fatalities. There is a strong standard deviation, however, so careful location selection can make a big difference.

Source:
http://www.currykerlinger.com/birds.htm
http://www.currykerlinger.com/studies.htm

Re:Better Idea

[b-baggins]

Because we all know that flooding and extinction don't occur at all today in our perfect, utopian climate.

Re:Better Idea

[DigitalRaptor]

Then the earth can't possibly revolve around the sun, because almost all scientists believe that today...

Re:Better Idea

[Alioth]

The thing is Burt Rutan isn't into designing wind turbines - he's into designing airframes. If there had been a $10M wind turbine prize, Burt Rutan wouldn't have been a competitor - it's not one of his interests.

Re:Better Idea

[lobsterGun]

500!!! that's all???

I could run over that many scientists on my way home. Just one of the buildings I'm in every week easily has that many scientists in it.

If you could only come up with 500 that agree with your hypothesis, then you may be doing something wrong.

Perhaps you need to phrase your questions in a different way.

Re:Better Idea

[d34thm0nk3y]

This is true, but remember that two of the more psychotic religions still have holy lands in the same city...

Re:Better Idea

[fucksl4shd0t]

Looks like the solution to the problem, then, is to convince the middle-easterners that Mohammed is really from Utah.

Kill two birds with one, er, airplane?

Re:Better Idea

[d34thm0nk3y]

Athiesm doesn't make terrorists.

No, it just makes GODLESS COMMIES!

This is a joke, sad as it is since many people actually believe this crap.

Re:Better Idea

[fucksl4shd0t]

This is the most worthless straw man argument I've ever seen.

According to most on the left, the USA is not a Christian nation. So why did it become one just to prop up your argument that Christians are killing for oil?

Also according to most on the left, we shouldn't even fucking be there.

Ahem. What is also wrong with your strawman argument is that whether or not the USA is a Christian nation, many in the military are Christians. Many in the military, stationed in Iraq, are Christians. And many of them are killing for oil. (let's just assume this one, while I don't personally believe oil is the only reason we're there, it's sorta assumed in this part of the thread) Therefore Christians are killing for oil.

Strawmen can't stand in the face of facts. :)

Re:Better Idea

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Airframes need wings to fly. Otherwise, they're busses.

Wind turbines need wings.

The question becomes "What is the relative cost of the generating and pointing gear vs. the spinning gear?" Say Mr. Rutan decided that his Scaled Composites was so good it could reduce the cost of manufacturing turbine wings and hubs down to zero. How much of the cost of a wind turbine would that eliminate? I don't know.

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Game show buzzer.

Scuba diving is not like space walking. Scuba divers feel friction and pressure from the water. Although space suits are pressurized, there is no friction and once in a tumble, a spacewalker cannot recover without opposite force. Under water, the same is not true.

And, with all due respect to the beautiful undersea, there is NOTHING like viewing your planet from above.

Re:Better Idea

[d34thm0nk3y]

I say we form an A-prize (A for ads) to run a massive multi million dollar pro-nuclear ad campaign. It is becoming increasingly obvious that people are retarded and just believe whatever is on TV, so maybe we could get some nuclear power up in here if we can convince enough people.

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course if you had a space elevator in place you wouldn't need to beam power back down via microwave - which, BTW, is quite dangerous to anything flying past and also loses quite a bit of energy in the form of atmospheric heating and general scattering of the beam - since you have an elevator in place you'd simply beam the power to the top of the elevator and then use a cable. This is much more efficient since you have no atmospheric effects leaching away your microwave beam.

Re:Better Idea

[phyruxus]

>>they will pay for a war... how?

With blood and words, same as now.
:/

Re:Better Idea

[Shafe]

Why is it that people always assume that if X million dollars isn't going towards some lofty goal like America's Space Prize, it will suddenly be re-routed towards a more pragmatic goal like building a better energy system?

It's the biggest fallacy that returns again and again whenever space is mentioned. Get over it people! It's not like the Senate is going "hey, should we fund $10 billion for America's lunar base, or should we put that money into feeding starving children in some loser nation that most Americans can't find on a map?" This is money for science, research, and adventure, and THAT gets headlines. Remember how powerful entertainment is in this country -- and think about how much time it consumes of YOUR life.

Furthermore, developing an energy system is futile. Tesla developed a zero point energy capturing mechanism back in the early 1900s, and you don't see it on the market anywhere now do you. And why is that? Because the big dogs always win out. Some day they will lose, but so far they will continue to crush us with their petroleum empire.

Re:Better Idea

[raduf]

Cost effective Wind Power (Kilowatts/Construction costs) would mean the end of middle east conflict, global warming, rural poverty in developing countries

Come on guys! This is still slashdot, not some popcorn news thingy. Surely by now most of you would have done the math and discovered that not oil is the gain in this war, but war itself, with all the chaos and spendings and red heringness it implies.
Can anybody please with a bit more time on their hands look up the numbers and compare oil profits in 5-10 years with the war-related spendings in the past 3 years? And mind you, I'm not even saying thet the expenses will be neccessary bigger, but that for the right people they count as profits too.

As for rural poverty in developing countries... if anybody still beleves this is a technical problem and not a social and/or political one, they're plain stupid. No offence. They really are.

Re:Better Idea

[corngrower]

While I disagree with what you say about windpower not being practical for large-scale power generation, I agree with you that the use of nuclear energy should be expanded.

I believe it's Denmark where a sizeable percentage of the country's power is from wind energy.

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

A 10 million dollar prize might draw out more individuals to attack the wind power problem. It is an immediate return on investment that can convince some to fund millions into new research when they normally might not do. Or the largess of the prize and hence the fame of winning it might draw out wealthy individuals to fund non-sexy research. Despite losing 10 million, Paul Allen invested in the team that won the Ansari X-Prize.

Re:Better Idea

[Rei]

Let me help further that point.

Spreading the Word (w/photos)

Col. Gary Brandl: Satan lives in Fallujah

In preparation for the attack, Christian Heavy Metal.

As for other interesting Iraq news for today:

US forces demolish a hospital and target another for releasing casualty figures; 70 journalists are embedded for the invasion; mot of the troops doing the invasion have no major combat experience; and a Georgia man commits suicide at Ground Zero to protest Bush and the war in Iraq.

Re:Better Idea

[nospmiS remoH]

Considering how some people took this suggestion:

The protests began after a newspaper suggested that the Prophet Mohammed would have probably chosen to marry one of the Miss World contestants if he had witnessed the beauty pageant ...

I doubt that suggesting Mohammed was from Utah would be a good thing.

Re:Better Idea

[Baseclass]

This is because our devout christian leader George W. Bush is calling the shots and turning this into a holy war whether we like it or not.

I truely hope history remembers him as the worst president the U.S. has ever known.

Re:Better Idea

[Rei]

What reactor design are you referring to that is worthless as far as proliferation goes? A non-plutonium-based RTG? :)

Re:Better Idea

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Forget the name, funding was killed shortly before the prototype was to be built. IFR? Something like that. But its waste is difficult to reprocess, supposedly as difficult as doing it from scratch.

Re:Better Idea

[nospmiS remoH]

True, but aren't several other religions represented in the US military in Iraq? No doubt including "many" muslims, athiests, jews, etc? Also, the motives of the leaders may be questionable, however, I doubt individual soldiers are looking down the sights of a gun and thinking, "I'm gonna kill this guy because I want his oil." Personally(now risking this to be modded troll), I think it would be better to fight over something with indisputable value, such as oil, than it would to be fighting over religious ideals. Moreover, although I am not a practicing Christian by any means, what does believing in Christianity have to do with ones desire for oil?

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

"Privatization of Space"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=1280501

Re:Better Idea

[fucksl4shd0t]

Eh? We *could* get involved in this discussion, but we probably agree for the most part. I was just trying to dismiss homeboy's strawman, is all, without specifically taking a side of my own, just the side that dismissed his strawman. :)

Re:Better Idea

[amorsen]

It's not a breeder though. If everyone made a switch to nuclear, we'd be running out of uranium pretty soon. Breeders solve that but at the cost of making interesting and useful nuclear waste. Breeders also have a reputation for being less safe.

Re:Better Idea

[Rei]

Well, the risk from reactors (apart from outright taking the already purified, but not sufficiently enriched, uranium and enriching it) is that U238 turns into plutonium when struck by neutrons. What sort of reactor wouldn't have U238 in it?

Actually, casting FGI here, I ran into an interesting design that at least reduces the risk. It's called the "Radkowsky Thorium reactor". It uses U-235 watered down by thorium and U-238. If you were to remove the thorium, the U-238 would still be 5 times more common than the U-235 - not enough to pose a proliferation risk on its own without further enrichment. As the thorium is struck by neutrons, it forms U-233 (similar fissile properties to U-235), effectively replacing the U-235 that gets used up, and keeping the ratio of U-235/U-233 to U-238 relatively constant. That would at least reduce the plutonium problem, while at the same time utilizing a fuel that currently isn't used much in reactors for fuel (thorium). :)

Re:Better Idea

[lacheur]

While this is true, it completely ignores the international scientific consensus that the current warming trends are caused by human activities increasing CO2 in the atmosphere to levels not previously seen, at least for the past 400,000 years, probably in the last 20 million years. And this happened over the course of about 150 years since the industrial revolution. The third assessment report by the IPCC Internationalstates:

"In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/022.htm

Importants points:
1. These changes are not part of the natural warming/cooling cycles.
2. They are happening at extremely fast rates. And those rates are increasing.
3. Even if we stopped all CO2 production right now, levels would continue to rise for hundreds of years due to lag.
4. Small shifts in global temperatures have large impacts on global climate.

Global climate change is real, we're causing it, and it's not something to be taken lightly.

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you don't see Tesla's "zero point energy capturing mechanism" because it was all smoke and mirrors. Just like every other perpetual energy machine out there...

Repeat after me:
Energy OUT cannot be > than Energy IN. EVER.

Re:Better Idea

[Lost Race]

someone to convince all the myopic NIMBY types to give the pebble bed reactors a try

Maybe they'll be convinced after they see it operating safely in your back yard for a few years. You don't mind having a nuclear power station as a neighbor, do you?

Re:Better Idea

[Shafe]

That's not how zero point works! "Perpetual motion" is one thing, "zero point energy" is different.

Let me ask you this: how much work does a hydro-electric plant put into its effort? Not much: you build the plant and boom, you have free energy. What about solar cells? I don't have to do JACK and I get free electricity! How about wind turbines? I'm not doing anything and all of this electricity comes out. Clearly these contraptions must be perpetual energy devices, yes?

Of course not. Zero point is the same as the above devices if you understand how it works. Imagine the zero point energy field as the wind, and a ZPE reactor as a wind turbine to capture ZPE. Free energy, again.

Re:Better Idea

[Harinezumi]

Like I said, I'd be perfectly happy having one in my back yard, especially if the alternatives are having a coal plant (smoggy) or a wind plant (noisy) there.

Though I guess a few decades of the Chinese running several dozen of them in their backyards without incident should make the case for pebble beds pretty clearly, especially once we start lagging behind China due to skyrocketing oil prices.

Re:Better Idea

[RedWizzard]

There are two major problems with the view that a slightly higher global average temperature would be beneficial:

1. Our agriculture is distributed for the current climate, not the climate of a warmer Earth. The change would be extremely painful.
2. There is not reason to believe that the rising temperature would stabilise at a beneficial level. It will, in all likelyhood, get too hot.

Re:Better Idea

[LWATCDR]

No they do not work all that well in a city. The airflow tends to be too turbulent. Large wind turbines are extremly noisy. Wind turbines do exist are are usful but the will never solve all the problems listed in the parrent post.

Re:Better Idea

[magefile]

It's all about the continuum. The worse the climate, the worse the flooding and extinctions. Duh.

Re:Better Idea

[Thing 1]

It's probably religious: they think that if they do certain things here they'll get certain things in return later from their deity.

It may be couched in religious terms, but it is entirely secular: if they do certain things (i.e., kill other tribes, rape their women, steal their valuables), they'll get certain things now (i.e., expand their influence, increase their tribe, get more valuables for less effort).

They just couch it in religious terms so that their followers will agree to it as well.

Re:Better Idea

[Thing 1]

I just love the idea of a gun made out of lobsters driving in the first place, let alone mowing down half a klik of scientists...

Re:Better Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Existing frictional losses by trees and mountains are already built into the system and are the status quo. New wind farms have already been shown to lower the evening temperaure by circulating high altitude wind currents to lower altitudes (the surface).
Too much friction and the whole planet will sart slowing down. What then? Longer work days? Who needs that?

Re:Better Idea

[Alioth]

But people like Rutan build airframes because they are passionate about flying. Wind turbines (short of dynamic disassembly) don't fly - therfore it's not something Rutan will be terribly interested in. Rutan building a wind turbine would be about as likely as Microsoft releasing a Linux distro.

How long...

[webroach]

..until Rutan does this?

Re:How long...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I'm tempted to point out the incredible amount of kinetic energy involved to ORBIT versus simply gain alititude. (dY*mG=400,000 vs .5 m (17,000km/s)^2

But then again, Rutan has done some amazing things.

Re:How long...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Yes, I know I screwed up the equations.
Altitude = (400,000m) * m * 9.8m/ss
Orbit = 0.5 * m * (v^2)
Where v=(G(m*M)r) ^ 1/5

I'm still drinking my early morning coffee

Re:How long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I know I screwed up the equations.
It's ok, you work at NASA.

Re:How long...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Yes, I know I screwed up the equations. It's ok, you work at NASA.

For the record, it was a contractor at Lockhead that screwed up the equations.

Re:How long...

[ckaminski]

Actually, if I remember correctly, it was simply that two contractors failed to decide upon Metric or American Imperial before providing commands to the Mars Climate Observer....

Re:How long...

[p3d0]

How is kinetic energy relevant exactly? Does it make Rutan less likely to build an orbiter?

Re:How long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone will need to. But it's several orders of magnitutde harder than a really high flying weird plane.

No one can do it right now.

The only resuable craft was the US flying brickyard and has the US ever turned a shuttle around in 60 days?

And I'll bet that $50M doesn't cover even a days operating cost for the shuttle.

Re:How long...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Object stay put until they are pushed. Once they get moving, they stay in motion, and in the absence of anything else, will stay at the same speed. There is a 1:1 relationship between how much "work" you do in pushing something, and how much "momentum" is stored up in the movement of the object.

Kinetic energy is proportional to 1/2 of that mass of an object times the square of the velocity (0.5*m*v^2).

For a one kilo mass to accellerate 10 m/s requires 500 joules of energy. For a one kilo mass to travel at 20 m/s requires 2000 joules. By the time you get up to orbital speed (>10000 m/s) you need 500,000,000 joules. A stick of dynamite is about 2 million joules, so the energy to kick a 1 kilo mass is equivilent to 250 sticks of dynamite.

In reality, 500 million joules per kg is the opening bid. For various reasons, simply blowing up 250 sticks of dynamite would obliterate most 1 kg masses. We have more luck stretching that energy over time by exploding fuel.

Well that fuel has a mass as well, and that mass ALSO needs to be accelerated along with whatever you are trying to get into orbit. The more fuel, the more mass required to move the additional fuel, and the whole thing snowballs into several rather nasty differential equations. (Thus the term Rocket Science.)

The space shuttle burns about 20 kg of fuel for every kg it gets into orbit. And that's using cryogenic hydrogen and oxygen (the best fuel:mass ratio possible with modern tech.)

Re:How long...

[p3d0]

Ok, and does this make Rutan less likely to build an orbiter?

Hah!

[metlin]

I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!

The confessions of a true geek, eh Taco? ;)

That said, the time frame for this thing seems a little too high -

And one more thing. They have to do it by Jan. 10, 2010.

I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing -- 3 years might have been nice, but 5 years seems a little too long to me.

Anyway, this is really good. Hopefully, the space race has started again!

PS - why the _HELL_ is Slashdot having an applet in the ads? It freezes up my browser in Windows for a while. It's getting to be a pain. At the very least, provide some way of turning off Applet ads.

Re:Hah!

[Anonymous Coward]

PS - why the _HELL_ is Slashdot having an applet in the ads? It freezes up my browser in Windows for a while. It's getting to be a pain. At the very least, provide some way of turning off Applet ads.

Because Slashdot sold out long ago. They have since joined the ranks of slop tech "media" and have succumed to corporate marketing agendas. They even have ads for Microsoft for cripes sake.

Re:Hah!

[FatherKabral]

They do provide a way to turn off ads. Subscribe.

Re:Hah!

[sadangel]

PS - why the _HELL_ is Slashdot having an applet in the ads? It freezes up my browser in Windows for a while. It's getting to be a pain. At the very least, provide some way of turning off Applet ads.


There is a way.
http://adblock.mozdev.org/dev.html

Re:Hah!

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

*cough*hosts file*cough

Re:Hah!

[doowy]

Yup, Firefox on XP here at work and when I click to read comments it all freezes up for a while (a long while) - I used to have to kill Firefox, but now I just wait it out and it eventually comes back to me.

I like to view the ad's cause if any site is going to have ad's targeted at 'me', it's this one. I've clicked the top banner many-a-time, but I may have to start blocking them cause I just can't give up 60 seconds every time I want to view some comments.

Either that, or stop viewing the comments :)

Re:Hah!

[metlin]

PS -- I'm a subscriber.

If I turn off the ads on stories and the home page, I lose a couple of plums, so I have to keep them on.

Besides, I actually like some of the ads that come on Slashdot, but I'd just have to block them.

Applet ads for Christ's sake! This was the same shit that people here used to complain about. What next, click on the monkey ad?

Sheesh.

Re:Hah!

[dema]

I just turned off Java in FF. The only thing that was taking forever for me was some weird "Buy Them On Ebay" link below the square ad after stories. After disabling Java, everything loads quickly and all the other ads (which i also like to catch) remain.

Re:Hah!

[Angstroem]

PS - why the _HELL_ is Slashdot having an applet in the ads? It freezes up my browser in Windows for a while. It's getting to be a pain. At the very least, provide some way of turning off Applet ads.

What, there are ads on /.? Or on any other website?

One word for you: squid... Never seen ads again since the installation of squid together with a nice redirector script effectively replacing all picture and applet ads with something less distractive.

Re:Hah!

[Darren Bane]

http://www.privoxy.org/

Re:Hah!

[-kertrats-]

Dude, its called AdBlock.

Re:Hah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but subscribing doesn't spare you from the horror of embarrassing dupes!

Re:Hah!

[metlin]

Dude, I know that I could block it out.

The thing is, I actually like some of the ads that come on Slashdot, especially since they are targetted at me and usually have stuff that I'm interested in.

I've clicked through the ads here several times, and I like the stuff that they put up.

What irritates me is the need to use an applet -- this freezes up Firefox on XP for a good while, and it's getting to be a pain.

So, now my solution is either to turn off Java so that I can read Slashdot, or block all the ads off Slashdot. No guesses which one I'd choose.

It's their choice - if Taco & gang made a retarded decision of using applets in ads, too bad. They'd be losing a lot of people who'd actually click the ads - these people would simply end up blocking all the ads to get away from the applet hell.

One would think that they would learn.

Re:Hah!

[timster]

Slashdot can't be described as rendering "properly" on any browser. Its HTML is a mess of hacks that flagrantly violates any standard which you care to use. The browsers that aim for standards compliance are going to have a hard time processing the FrontPage-caliber code that constitutes Slashdot.

Re:Hah!

[Peyna]

Nice, I thought Slashdot was all about Opensource?

Slashcode is open source; I'm using Mozilla and have never had any problems with Slashdot.

The nice thing, whatever is causing the problem with Firefox will likely be fixed in a very short time. Whereas with IE, you might wait a year, and not even have MS acknowledge the problem existed.

The mere existence of problems does not demonstrate a failure of open source, it provides an excellent opportunity for open source to prove itself.

Re:Hah!

[Anonymous Coward]

PS - why the _HELL_ is Slashdot having an applet in the ads? It freezes up my browser in Windows for a while. It's getting to be a pain. At the very least, provide some way of turning off Applet ads.

Take a look at http://www.privoxy.org. Good tool, and effective.

Re:Hah!

[Peyna]

They even have ads for Microsoft for cripes sake.

It's like taking money from the enemy. MS can waste their money here all they want, I doubt it does them much good.

Re:Hah!

[Richard_at_work]

I actually refuse to adblock any site, purely on the grounds that Im willing to pay the price to view the website, rather than taking it for free. If enough people block ads, it becomes an unviable income source, and then what? Slashdot goes subscription only? Goes under? What?

Re:Hah!

[julesh]

3 years might have been nice, but 5 years seems a little too long to me

Sorry, 3 years is infeasible for the kind of development this will take. How long was SS1 in development? This is at least an order of magnitude more complicated.

I'm not sure 5 years is possible, but I'm hoping to be proved wrong.

Re:Hah!

[magefile]

Some of us aren't browsing from computers where we can install stuff :(

Re:Hah!

[Ziviyr]

Yeah, total shame they abuse ads like that.

No wonder I missed it. :-)

Re:Hah!

[metlin]

Yes, but you are forgetting that a lot of the technology is already out there.

For all that the Slashdot crowd bashes NASA, they have done a lot of fundamental groundbreaking work that others can use.

If they were starting out from scratch, I can understand - but they are not. They've something to work from, which would make a lot of difference.

I think 5 years would be neat, with a few extra months thrown in for testing -- however I'm worried that this may make the teams complacent.

Oh well, I suppose I'm being too optimistic here :-)

Re:Hah!

[Angstroem]

You got a point there...

However, quite a number of pages became literally unreadable by squeezing in as much advertising as possible. Since those became the majority, I'm not adding extra rules for the few "nice" sites which keep it quiet -- but just redirect all links to known ad servers.

What's even more annoying than the sheer amount of advertising are animated ads. The eye gets constantly distracted by animated GIFs or (yet worse) Flash animations, well, flashing and blinking around -- or they just annoy me with browser warnings that I don't have the appropriate plugin for this very Flash or Shockwave stuff.

Besides, I frankly doubt the effectiveness of web ads (besides paying some bills for high traffic sites)... Maybe it's just me, but I never saw a web ad, even when thematically appropriate and not just some vanilla "click4cash" ad, where I said: Wow, hey, now that's something I need to get.

Re:Hah!

[Rei]

It depends on what they call a 'private company'. If it's Boeing-sized and just doing it for the PR, sure. If it's Scaled Composites-sized? Not that likely. 5 years is just too short, unless they find a *big* donor.

Re:Hah!

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Well, considering that both the Soviet and American space programs were built on the fundimental research done by the Nazis on ballistic missile technology...

I declare Godwin's law.

Re:Hah!

[mr_snarf]

I dont't block ads (only pop-ups), for the reason grandparent said. So, naturally I see ads. Can someone please answer this question:

WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH 'FREE SMILEYS'!?!?! ARGHHHHhhh. I see ads for them everywhere, anyone bothered to click through and see what the hell its about? I mean, gee whizz yellow cartoon faces.../endrant

Seriously though, anyone know what the deal with them is? :P

Re:Hah!

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Not to mention a goodly mix of JPL1 and LOX

Re:Hah!

[Fishstick]

apparently another spyware front (similar to those free screensavers)

someone here at work ended up infested -- turned out they had clicked through to get smileys to put in their email and got way more than they bargained for

Re:Hah!

[Khazunga]

But then, /. provides you with the possibility of subscribing. They say you can replace whatever income they gain with the ads by a direct payment. Why don't you pay? /. is an interesting service, and subscriptions aren't that expensive...

Re:Hah!

[ViolentGreen]

I don't think anyone is forgetting that both NASA and the Soviets put people in orbit 50 years ago.

How much of this information is public though? This is not a NASA project; this is intended for private groups. I'm sure most of the theory is available but there is a lot of stuff that comes from experience and testing. I think that five years is pushing it.

Re:Hah!

[Anonymous Coward]

The nice thing, whatever is causing the problem with Firefox will likely be fixed in a very short time. Whereas with IE, you might wait a year, and not even have MS acknowledge the problem existed.

Hm. Funny think is, it was sometime around last December when a friend convinced me to download fire[bird/fox] and I reported the problem with how /. got rendered (along with CNN, actually). My ticket was instantly resolved as a dupe, and... A year later the problem still exists.

Re:Hah!

[Peyna]

Depends on the severity of the issue; does it happen all the time; is it a simple rendering issue, but is everything still usable? The problem described in the parent rendered the browser useless for 60 seconds or more. The problem you describe might be a mere annoyance.

Re:Hah!

[Have Blue]

What's even more annoying than the sheer amount of advertising are animated ads.

As a consequence of the less-well-threaded display methods Apple uses, if you hold down the mouse on the scroll bar in Safari it freezes up all animations on the page- gifs, Flash, Java, everything. It makes pages a lot nicer to read even if (like me) you don't ad-block, and it frees up the vast amount of CPU that Macromedia's horrible OS X version of Flash consumes.

Re:Hah!

[De Lemming]

You're probably talking about this bug (links from Slashdot are disabled, copy url to view). It's fixed, but too late for inclusion in the 1.0 branch. It will be included in Firefox 1.1. (Up to now, more than 30 other bugs are marked as duplicates of this one :-)

Re:Hah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. You can't invoke Godwin's law by deliberately making the Nazi reference to invoke Godwin's law. Godwin's Law only applies when invoked by someone other than the person who made the Nazi reference.

Re:Hah!

[Anonymous Coward]

MS advertising on Slashdot discredits Slashdot. There's the obvious "sell out" factor, on the one hand Slashdot likes to trash MS (sometimes incorrectly), yet they'll still accept ads for them. Also consider the sitting-on-the-fence type person, the "should I try this linux thing" type who stumbles upon Slashdot. Seeing the mindless zealot-factor rampant here, in combination with seeing MS ads on the same site that tries to look better than MS would lead one to believe that Slashdot isn't a proper site for software comparisons. The "taking money from the enemy" thing is a red herring: MS's advertising budget is many more times than the entire operational budget for Slashdot... it's chump change to Gates and Co.

Re:Hah!

[Rei]

Apart from the fact that I don't understand how your post makes sense in response to mine, I assume you mean "RP-1", instead of "JPL1". RP1 is "Rocket Propellant 1". "JPL" is "Jet Propulsion Laboratory". I don't think the workers at JPL would appreciate it if you flooded their building with LOX. :)

Re:Hah!

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Sorry, in military circles that stuff that makes planes fly is called JPL, which is a slightly different grade of kerosene from RP1. I mungled the terms.

Re:Hah!

[CrimsonAvenger]

orry, 3 years is infeasible for the kind of development this will take. How long was SS1 in development? This is at least an order of magnitude more complicated.

More complicated? I think not. More difficult? Certainly. One must remember that it was possible to achieve orbit with 1950's technology. The Saturn V went from drawing board to test flight in only six years, and it was enormously more capable than a vehicle capable of winning this prize must be.

Given that much early spaceflight technology is no longer under patent protection (even the Shuttle tiles aren't still patented, though refinements may very well be), the available technologies are quite extensive, and it's just an engineering problem.

"it's just an engineering problem" doesn't mean it's trivial of course. A lot depends on things like how that 20% expendable is defined - cost, mass, what?

If cost is the key issue, then a big dumb cheap booster can be part of this setup. Which makes it a lot easier.

Mass is harder to game than cost, though. if only 20% of the dry mass of your launch vehicle can be disposable, you'll have to design VERY carefully, indeed. Or use expensive ultralight weight materials for the throwaway pieces.

Re:Hah!

[Carnildo]

The NASA approach was very simple: stick a guy on top of an Air Force missile and fire him off. Most of the X-Prize contestants could manage it just by making their rockets larger.

Problem is, it doesn't scale very well, and nobody's figured out how to recover and re-use the entire launch vehicle.

Re:Hah!

[Carnildo]

80% of the dry mass has to be re-usable. The Saturn V doesn't even come close -- even if you managed a parachute recovery of the first stage, you wouldn't get more than 20% re-use.

Re:Hah!

[Mycroft_VIII]

Strange I'm using Firefox (0.10.1) on XPpro and have no problem with the adds, don't see them eigther, just a message 'click here to get plugin' or some such. I've turned off just about every form of scripting though. Mycroft

Re:Hah!

[Mycroft_VIII]

OOPS, except that 'law' says invoking godwins law on purpos does not invoke it. :) Mycroft

Re:Hah!

[CrimsonAvenger]

Hmm, the first stage of a Saturn is 300t, empty. Total empty weight of Saturn V + Apollo was ~544t, so if you could parachute-recover the first stage, you'd be over 50% reusable right there.

The second stage of a Saturn V stack, with the third stage and Apollo removed, and an aeroshell added) could just about reach orbit by itself, so a SSTO isn't totally out of the realm of possibility, even with 60's technology, much less with the rather better materials technology of today.

Re:Hah!

[Carnildo]

That's assuming you recovered it intact, and the engines and plumbing are in reusable condition. I'm not sure what the heaviest object ever dropped by parachute was, but I expect a Saturn V first stage is a lot heavier. Recovering it intact would be quite an engineering challenge.

Re:Hah!

[ckaminski]

Might be an option if they could fix the story dupes... :-)

Re:Hah!

[CrimsonAvenger]

Yah. Notice I used the word "if" there.

However, a Saturn V is not required to reach orbit. Something rather larger than a Gemini or Soyuz would do nicely. The difficulty is the reusability requirement, not the design of a basic goes-up-goes-around-comes-down vehicle. Which we could to in the 60's.

One would hope that our engineering expertise as come a ways in the last 40 years.

Re:Hah!

[twostar]

I think you have that reversed. There is no way that Boeing or any other large aerospace program could design a new manned launch vehicle and launch operational prototypes within 5 years. They're marred down in to much bureaucratic BS to get that done.

Small companies however, can do quick turn arounds from initial designs to testing hardware. They don't have to get the signatures of a dozen supervisors who may have no idea what the hell they're signing off on but beware if you don't get that signature.

Re:Hah!

[Rei]

Are you kidding? Even the first major rocket in the world (the V2), without the benefit of knowlege of experience behind it and huge technological challenges ahead of it (albeit with a big budget) was developed in 5 years.

Most major rocket development projects, apart from the huge ones like the shuttle, are done in a couple years. For example, the first Atlas design was ordered in 1955; its first engine tests were conducted in 1956, and it flew later that year. Not good enough for you, since the first Atlas didn't carry people to space? How about the ultimate US rocket, the Saturn V? The first serious Saturn V drawings weren't until 1965 (although there was some "technology" research done before then, and the earlier Saturn series was started in 1962). Of course, all of the little tech startups already have the basic technology research behind them, thanks to NASA, so they don't have to worry about that - and still, the first Saturn V launched in 1967. Probably one of the most impressive rockets ever built, well over 100 meters tall, took people to the moon, and the entire series was designed, the tech developed, the vehicles built, and all tested in 5 years, with the Saturn V itself in only two.

I could keep going if you want.

It's the small private companies that take forever as they scrounge for funds and hit technolgical problems that their lack of experience lead them to.

Re:Hah!

[CaptainAvatar]

Hmmm, the Shuttle SRBs are one candidate (and an obvious point of comparison, too) - they are only 86 tonnes empty. Big step up to 300 tonnes. Perhaps you could make them lifting bodies or something? Not so much to have them fly/glide home, but at least slow the descent somewhat. Maybe retrorockets to soften the blow.

Re:Hah!

[twostar]

Welcome to the current state of the aerospace industry. The giants are immobilized by their size. True, 50 years ago we could take new designs from draftingboard to flight ready in a couple of years but as the price tag has increased so has the development time.

Re:Hah!

[bziman]

PS - why the _HELL_ is Slashdot having an applet in the ads? It freezes up my browser in Windows for a while. It's getting to be a pain. At the very least, provide some way of turning off Applet ads.

It's a browser-related issue. I e-mailed Hemos about it last night, and he's looking into it. They don't want flash or java ads any more than we do.

-brian

Re:Hah!

[julesh]

The Saturn V went from drawing board to test flight in only six years

That Saturn V was the culmination of Werner von Braun's years of experience of building rockets with the ambition of reaching space, and was only an incremental improvement on its predecessors (leading right back to the V2). I believe it took him somewhere in the region of 20 years solid work to achieve it.

Yes, it is "just" an engineering problem. So was what von Braun was doing during that time. OK, so some of what he learned from his experience is now in the public domain, and available for anyone to pick up and use. Also, materials science is a lot further progressed. These things should help.

But also, this is a much more complicated task that von Braun faced. Not only do you need to get into space, you need to do it on a much more limited budget, with larger constraints on what you need to achieve. The only real advantage ASP contenders have is that they don't need to lift as much mass as the Saturn V could.

Re:Hah!

[gfreeman]

Sorry, 3 years is infeasible

Infeasible in uncromulent.

Re:Hah!

[gfreeman]

Bugger.

Hoist, meet petard ...

All I can say is....

[Exsam]

Hell yea! Yet another step closer to comercial space flight, so I can get off this god forsaken rock.

Re:All I can say is....

[zoefff]

just use your thumb, fella. That's how you came here in the first place, isn't it?

To little?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like spaceship one spent significantly more than 10 mil on their first ship. Is 50 mil a large enough reward for other participants?

Re:To little?

[datastalker]

There has to be incentive, and that's what this provides. It also provides a framework for the contest, which is nearly as important.

Furthermore, while the prize is not enough to recoup an investment, it's still nothing to shake a stick at. We are talking about $50 million here.

Re:To little?

[JDevers]

My take on these type of awards is that the cash prize is just there to try to encourage both the small and inventive teams as well as help pay back some of the bills accrued by the big teams. The real reward will come a few years AFTER the competition, but the award will help keep the company solvent from point A to B.

Basically, this isn't like a lottery or something where if you spend $11 to make $10 you loose, instead you got to do $11 worth of science for only $1 and more importantly you might be able to move your company/team towards a future where you can make 10x-100x times the award per year or more...

Re:To little?

[241comp]

Well, $50mil and essentially first shot at $1B in contracts... yeah, that's enough of a prize. Yes, they may select someone other than the winner to give their $1B in contracts too but if the competitors are as far apart as they were on the X Prize, that probably won't happen.

Re:To little?

[16K Ram Pack]

I've got a feeling that some of the participants didn't get involved in Spaceship One because of the financial reward, but because it was cool. My guess is that this is going to cost a huge amount of money to do.

If I see someone going for this prize (particularly the Rutan team), I'll send them some money. OK, it will only be something like $50, but a lot of little guys and a small number of big donors, and you could get something like a billion in donations for a project like this.

Re:To little?

[Psychotext]

Good post, but you've hit on a pet hate:

Re:To little?

[whats_a_zip]

Sure 50 mil is enough. The idea isn't to cover ALL the costs, just provide incentives. The participants have to have their own passion, beyond the money motivator. Besides, the winner will have developed some very attractive and marketable technology along the way to winning.

Re:To little?

[akgunkel]

If you RTFA, you'll see that Bigelow has a plan to use this spacecraft with his inflatable habitats. The 50 Mil is just to take the edge off the development costs, the real money is in carrying tourists to Bigelow's space hotels.

Re:To little?

[Anonymous Coward]

> you spend $11 to make $10 you loose

What makes the person you are talking about not tight after spending $11?

Re:To little?

[iabervon]

The reward is only to get people to agree to the details of the rules, not to actually pay for the whole thing. $10m was sufficient to get the spaceship one team to fly with the specified turnaround time, altitude, and weight, rather than using different values which would make their achievement harder to compare to other teams. $50m should be sufficient to get teams to set up docking with a particular sort of station connection, orbit the earth twice, and so forth. Without the prize money, someone laying out the rules wouldn't have the necessary authority to get people to agree on what is sufficient.

I personally find it interesting that the people offering the prize intend to have their own space station in orbit at that point.

Re:To little?

[Idarubicin]

If you build an orbital craft, you get:

$50 million in cash;

millions in free advertising and goodwill;

first shot at lucrative private licenses for your technology (a la Branson and Virgin Galactic);

...to offer chicks in bars a ride in the corporate rocket ship.

The prize money just takes the edge off the costs, or perhaps encourages some groups to take a shot that wouldn't otherwise. (The X-Prize covered about a third of SS1's development costs, which is a not-insignificant discount. For some groups, it would have covered all their out-of-pocket expenses.) Plus, it gives the media something to focus on--people love a good race.

Is it a large enough reward? Yes!

Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Clappingman]

The spacecraft must reach a minimum velocity sufficient to complete two (2) full orbits at altitude before returning to Earth; It doesn't say that it actually has to orbit twice though, just reach the velocity necessary to do so.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[bluFox]

Is there a difference between the two ? (velocity for one orbit and two orbits)
I thought the orbital velocity for earth was a constant at a constant height???

[with very low friction at that altitude, the deceleration is pretty much low.]

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Phanatic1a]

Please explain.

If you achieve the velocity sufficient to achieve orbit, then you've achieved the velocity sufficient to orbit twice. And three times. And 17 times.

I must be missing something.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[FatherKabral]

If one does not maintain velocity, one's orbit will degrade and one will fall back to earth. It's similar to what happens when you throw a ball up in the air...if you were to throw it into orbit, it would just come right back down, because there is nothing to impel it to continue at that elevation.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Daniel Dvorkin]

At low altitude (say, the 100 km that was the goal for the X Prize) that's not necessarily true -- you could have the velocity for n orbits, but lose enough to drag not to make n+1.

For an extreme example of this -- consider the fact that if you fired a bullet from a decent rifle a thousand miles up, it would go into orbit, but obviously bullets don't go into orbit here on the ground.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Shmooze]

If its reached the velocity to orbit twice (or indeed, any number of times, given an assumed lack of air resistance), then either:

1) Its at a height at which it can orbit - If the start point is low, the orbit'll be elliptical.
2) Its above the height where it has escape velocity, in which case it'll fly away (this is *quite* unlikely I think!)

So, having the velocity to orbit twice effectively puts you in orbit anyway, so once there you might as well stay there - It gives you more time to make course adjustments and so on.
Given this, why bother to make the distinction between the velocity and actually orbiting?

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Anonymous Coward]

And then Newton was born.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Hassman]

That is only the case if you are still in the atmosphere. The shuttle does not do constant burns to maintain orbit.

In a frictionless environment, you will maintain your velocity indefinitely. So, once your reach the right speed, you essentially "fall" back to the earth at the same speed that you are shooting away from it... Hence you orbit and are weightless.

I'm not familiar with where 'space' actually starts, nor where the atmosphere 'disappears', but it sounds like that is right about the distance they need to get to.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[DigitalRaptor]

Really?

So all of those rocks orbiting Saturn have little jet packs on them that keep them in orbit?

And all of our satellites have vast supplies of fuel that constantly burn, keeping them in orbit?

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[kfg]

. . .because there is nothing to impel it to continue at that elevation.

Other than the fact that it is also traveling at 25,000 mph away from the earth.

KFG

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[AKAImBatman]

Low Earth Orbit is not frictionless. It's just EXTREMELY thin air. Anything that stays in LEO for an extended period will require an occasional boost to maintain its orbit. That's why NASA occasionally gives the ISS a boost or two.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[isorox]

There is no "boudary" of space, the atmosphere gently thins (well, theres larger differences at various layers). Even at IIS height though, the atmosphere causes drag, and the shuttle has to boost the station. It may take 20 years, but with no boosting, IIS will fall back down to Earth.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[John Harrison]

The /. summary also doesn't mention coming down. So landing isn't required either.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Enigma_Man]

All of those rocks orbiting Saturn are _really_ far away from Saturn. There is effectively zero drag up there, however there is still a non-zero amount of drag, and after many billions and billions of years, yes Saturn will have no rings because they all will have fallen inward, just like how eventually all of the planets would fall into the sun (if the sun didn't blow up first). It has been thought that the earth had a very slight ring at one point in history, though I can't remember why it was thought that, or when exactly.

-Jesse

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[IPFreely]

The spacecraft must reach a minimum velocity sufficient to complete two (2) full orbits at altitude before returning to Earth; It doesn't say that it actually has to orbit twice though, just reach the velocity necessary to do so.

I suppose there could be reasons that you would not actually want to perform the orbits even though you've reached the appropriate speed.

Orbits take time. If you just pop up to altitude and speed, then immediately fall back down then the total trip is probably an hour or so. In order to orbit, you have to have to support several hours in space, maybe a day:
1. Air supply and air tightness of cabin to maintain the crew for the duration of the orbits.
2. Depending on length of time you spend in orbit, you might need other "human" facilities on board, food, water, restrooms.
3. Radiation and debris shielding. There's less debris in the upper atmosphere, but lots in orbit.
There may be fuel considerations to actually entering and exiting orbit rather than just passing through and falling back down.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Harinezumi]

To be able to say that you have reached orbit, you have to not only go n kilomiters up (to eliminate air drag, as you said) but also achieve a certain velocity in a vector perpendicular to the pull of gravity.

If you merely shoot a bullet straight up, it would either go straight up and come back down (never achieving orbit in the process) or escape the Earth's gravity well, going in a straight line unless it's captured by the gravity pull of something else (let's avoid thinking about what air friction would do to a bullet fired fast enough to achieve escape velocity).

While I haven't seen any data on just how far up you'd need to go to completely eliminate air drag (and if I'm wrong, please correct me), I would imagine that 400km was chosen for the prize because the drag is pretty negligible at that point. If that is, in fact, true, then if you can achieve enough velocity at the proper vector to make one full orbit, you should be able to make n full orbits without expending any more fuel.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[xnot]

A low altitude orbit experiences drag due to Earth's atmosphere, so it's important to specify how many orbits, because that will dictate the amount of station-keeping thrust (= fuel) required to maintain the orbit. Also, for a circular orbit, the velocity is directly proportional to the distance from the Earth (see two-body problem in orbital mechanics), so the previous poster is correct in saying that if you achieve some velocity associated with an orbit, you achieve that orbit.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[servognome]

Orbits do degrade, especially low earth orbits, just look at Hubble, or ISS, which need reboosts every once in awhile.
Low orbit still is subject to significant drag affects of the atmosphere.
There is no good definition of where space starts, usually its considered around 100miles, but the atmosphere extends up to 1000 miles into space. So you can have a vehicle designed to achieve the speed of 2 orbits and not have the energy to achieve more.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Suidae]

If I remember correctly the Earth's moon is being slowly boosted outwards/upwards in its orbit by bleeding off small amounts of Earth's rotational energy. Eventually it may leave Earth orbit.

Does the same effect apply to the bodies in Saturn's rings or other planetary moons?

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[FatherKabral]

This does not relate so much to presence of atmosphere as it does to gravitational pull. Centripetal force is what keeps the shuttle in orbit - the shuttle simply cruises at high velocity and uses controlled burns to maintain orbit.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[LiquidCoooled]

I thought because the Earth-Moon system are coupled they would once again end up becoming one glorious whole. (No goatse jokes please...)
Without a new source of energy, the moon cannot escape our gravitational well.
If the moon was going to leave our orbit, it wouldv done so already.

(Picture the rubber sheet and marbles - the moon will orbit us until it collides, it will just take orders of magnitude longer than a blackhole)

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[logpoacher]

consider the fact that if you fired a bullet from a decent rifle a thousand miles up, it would go into orbit, but obviously bullets don't go into orbit here on the ground.

Well, careful here. That's the big misconception - that orbital velocity is anything like the speed of a bullet. Ok, ok, it depends on your definition of "decent rifle" :-), but no Earth rifle even comes close to firing at 5 miles a second - a tenth of that is more likely.

Similarly, SpaceShip One only achieved about 0.6miles/sec. That's why - amazing though it is that they achieved what they did on such a small budget - the orbit challenge is so much harder than just "touching space". When you consider that chemical rockets project propellant at about 2 miles/sec, you'll see that a single-stage rocket's mass must be almost entirely fuel (>85%) to achieve orbital speed alone - and that's after you've reached a suitable height! Multi-stage boosters help with the physics, of course, but they slaughter the economics. :-)

Anyway, achieving height is just the easy "Part 1" of the problem. Speed's the hard part. Try doing the momentum sums yourself - it gives you serious respect for people who can build machines to overcome the problems, and it shows how close Earth is to being completely un-escapable (at least using chemical rockets)!

Of course, re-reading your post, the rifle thing does illustrate your point rather well. Oh well ...

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Think of what the space shuttle does. If everything goes well, it's in orbit. As you say, if you get there, you can orbit as much as you want to.

But, when the shuttle has a problem, there are several abort modes, including RTLS, ATA, ATO, and AOA

RTLS - return to launch site. Early in the flight, but after the SRB's are done burning, the shuttle can return to the runway at Kennedy if there's a problem.

ATA - Abort Trans Atlantic. If the shuttle is going too fast to get back to Kennedy, it can land an emergency airfields in Spain or Morocco.

ATO - Abort To Orbit. Orbit is actually a relatively safe place to be. If you can get there, you have a lot of time to solve the problem, in a stable environment. The ATO abort mode has actually been used by the space shuttle, due to a loss of one main engine on ascent. The other two engines simply burned longer to compensate, and the orbit wound up being lower by a few dozen miles. The mission wasn't compromised, because when the ATO was complete, mission control decided not to end the mission.

AOA - Abort Once Around. If the shuttle has an emergency that precludes it landing in Spain AND getting to orbit, it can do a an abort once around. The shuttle goes around the Earth once, and lands in California (Edwards) where the runways are nice and long. Presumably in the event of an AOA, you want nice long runways. It should be noted that with just a little extra velocity, the external tank would go all the way around the earth, but still wouldn't have enough velocity to get around a second time. Right now the tank burns up over the Indian ocean (I think, might be the Pacific). The external tank doesn't have enough velocity to go around twice, but it could go around once.

So, there's an actual flight path that a rocket can take which would allow it to fly all the way around the earth, but only once. Presumably by stipulating that the velocity required to achieve two orbits is required, they are precisely defining what they mean by "get into orbit". Once around is an orbit, but isn't _in_ orbit by their thinking.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[LiquidCoooled]

Not to be tinfoilified, but 400km is pretty much bang on the 250miles that the IIS orbits at.

Perhaps, this is the US government trying to get something practical out of the process.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[TheLogster]

Well gettinng up is not the hardest part of getting to orbit .. it is getting down again whithout turning your craft and occupants into a huge ball of plasma.

Due to the nature of things - you could spend several hours building up enough energy to sustain orbit - but, only have a few minutes (relativly) on the way back down to get rid of all the energy.

The biggest issue is going to be the heatshield systems ....

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Enigma_Man]

Those same effects could very well apply, but I meant in a general "all else equal" sort of way :) Friction is the enemy that will always win.

-Jesse

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the shuttle took about nineteen minutes to do a complete orbit.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Anonymous Coward]

Orbits do degrade, especially low earth orbits, just look at Hubble, or ISS, which need reboosts every once in awhile. Low orbit still is subject to significant drag affects of the atmosphere.

Actually, that could be an advantage for anything that has to stay up a long time: there's vast amounts of crap (launcher, satellite fragments etc.) in earth orbit, all ready to smack into your valuable satellite at miles per second velocities. But in a low orbit, that drag would rapidly sweep such stuff away (downwards) before it's likely to hit. You need to keep nudging your station at regular intervals, but the benefits of not having a stray paint flake impacting must be considerable...

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[trixillion]

Tidal forces currently increase the Moon's orbital speed (pushing it out) and decrease the Earth's spin. This will continue until about 3 billion years from now when the earth and moon will be tidally locked with a rotation period of about 47 days. After that the Sun's tidal effect will conitinue to slow down the Earth's spin and push it outward. As this happens the moon will actually fall back towards the earth. Eventually the moon would get so close to the earth that it would pass the roche limit and disintegrate. This would lead to a ring. However long before that can happen the sun will consume the earth and the moon in its giant phase.

This same effect applies to other moons as well and is the reason that many are phase locked to their parent bodies. However the tidal force goes as 1/r^3 or 1/r^4 (I forget) so it is only important when you are close to your parent body. For example, Mars does not have any significant solar tidal effect, whereas Venus is almost phase locked to the sun and mercury is in a 3:2 resonant phase lock to the sun.

Tidal forces do not slow down rings. However they are formed when moons fall below the roche limit. So for example, a retrograde moon will fall towards the planet as it loses orbital speed from tidal forces. Once is passes the Roche limit it will disintegrate and form a ring.

Note, all the above facts are from memory so take them with a grain of salt until you verify them.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[gzunk]

What? You mean Space 1999 was lying to me?

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[LiquidCoooled]

No it wasnt lying to you.

From IMDB:
Plot Outline: The crew of Moonbase Alpha must struggle to survive when a massive explosion throws the Moon from orbit into deep space.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072564/

Note the "massive explosion" part :)

thats where the additional energy to escape the gravity well comes from.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Daniel Dvorkin]

My bad. How embarrassing. I should've crunched the numbers first.

I will note that if you go a million miles up, you get orbital velocities within the range of modern rifles ... but then there are, to put it mildly, other issues to consider.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Anonymous Coward]

the internationaly reconized boundry of space is 62 miles, (LEO) did you not read the SpaceShipOne and rutan story's? you need to take the time to read!

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[CrimsonAvenger]

Quibble - the Moon is high enough up that its orbital speed is in the range of a good rifle-bullet.

If you're willing to accept a less than circular orbit, 60,000 Km up, a good varmint rifle ought to be able to manage an orbit that just missed atmosphere at perigee.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[isorox]

And? Just because a committee decides "space" begins at 100km doesn't mean the atmosphere obeys. 100km is an arbitary point that's high enough to make sure airplane pilots dont get astronaut wings.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[CrimsonAvenger]

I thought the shuttle took about nineteen minutes to do a complete orbit.

Ninety. 90 minutes, not 19 minutes.

That said, a couple orbits at the required altitude would take no more than four hours.

Reasons for not wanting to actually do the orbits, though:

If you do one (or more) orbit(s), your landing site may not be under you until an inconvenient time has passed. So, in order to save you from having to ferry the orbiter back from Istanbul, or the south Pacific, it might be more convenient to de-orbit without bothering to finish the 2 orbits. For instance, you can launch from the West Coast, achieve orbit before you reach the east Coast, and land in Florida.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, the bullet fired from a rifle here on the ground also goes into elliptic orbit. It's just that the ellipse crosses the surface of the Earth in two points.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Rei]

A very good, informative post. However, the rules specify 400km altitude, and I assume by the wording they want a circular orbit. At 400km, even with a blunt body craft, you'll get at least hundreds of orbits without doing any stationkeeping before reentering.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I suppose specifying a 400km circular orbit would have been just as good, but then they would also need to specify how circular the orbit had to be, otherwise someone would try to say that a path that intersected with the ground was just an orbit with a negative perigee altitude.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[Carnildo]

If you only need to go around once, there are tricks you can use, such as atmospheric skipping to make it easier. You can't use them for longer flights.

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[logpoacher]

Quibble - the Moon is high enough up that its orbital speed is in the range of a good rifle-bullet. If you're willing to accept a less than circular orbit, 60,000 Km up, a good varmint rifle ought to be able to manage an orbit that just missed atmosphere at perigee.

Yup, good points! I must learn to state my assumptions. I must learn to state my assumptions. I must learn to state my assumptions. :-)

Re:Technicality Smechnic..thingy

[pkreemer]

And apparently, the 'Bigelow inflatable space habitat' will need to be in orbit for the docking demonstration part of the prize.

So you have not only the problem of large energy expenditure to get into low Earth orbit, but then some fine-grained navigation to match velocities with another craft.

Compared to the X-Prize requirements, this is like a full-blown defense contract (minus the bureacracy and paperwork).

That's a big meatball

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, no more than 20% expendable and attain a real orbit. I have a feeling this money is safe.

Re:That's a big meatball

[Gil-galad55]

Yeah -- that having been said, I was fairly sure the X-Prize wasn't going to be claimed, and I ended up having to eat my shirt. So I'm not going to be so quick to write this one off. But you're right; the orbital requirements are hard enough, and then the extra docking requirements... highly non-trivial, in my ignorant opinion.

Re:That's a big meatball

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, but the X-prize was a miniscule accomplishment compared to this one. The technology to pull off the X-prize has been in existence for half a century, but this one has requirements you couldn't do right now no matter how big your budget. It's going to require brand new propulsion technology.

Re:That's a big meatball

[MarkusQ]

...this one has requirements you couldn't do right now no matter how big your budget. It's going to require brand new propulsion technology.

Ever hear of the space shuttle? With slightly smarter external tank management it should be able to do the job nicely.

-- Markus

Re:That's a big meatball

[timeOday]

Has the shuttle ever achieved a turnaround time of anything like 60 days?

The rules specify the 5 people...

[Anonymous Coward]

...must be Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove, Ashcroft, and Oreilly. Successful reentry is not required to receive your prize.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[Otter]

And just how do you think technology is going to proceed without O'Reilly? The code running the next generation of space travel will be written by people who learned their trade from VB.net For Dummies In 24 Hours!

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[DeathByDuke]

I suggest the prize should be the Halliburton Iraq Oil contract.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[Anonymous Coward]

uhh, I believe that he was talking about the right wing commentator Bill OReilly

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[Anonymous Coward]

I could really go for a falaffel right now!!!

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[dfung]

:-)

Perhaps mixing Tim O'Reilly with the others was intended to cause a combustion to power the spacecraft. Why, just mixing Tim O'Reilly with Karl Rove alone would produce enough heat to light Sebastopol for 6 months.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[isorox]

and Oreilly

Ahh, someone from SAMS?

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[DrCash]

I heard Bill Gates was considering offering a prize of 1 billion dollars for anyone who can launch the heads of state of every nation on earth into the orbit of Pluto . . . permanently.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[JavaLord]

...must be Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove, Ashcroft, and Oreilly. Successful reentry is not required to receive your prize.

Yes, but with those people in the Rocket, successful re-entry is likely since they are very succssful people. Now, if you are shooting for failure try putting in Kerry, Edwards, Gore, Nader and Sharpton

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[gravityZ]

It's Bill O'Reilly, I think. Though if we sent Tim it could lead to a nice "Re-Entry Annoyances" book.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[slapout]

Why was this modded as Troll. It was apparently a joke.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[Anonymous Coward]

The mess in Iraq is success? Not gaining a single net job in your first four years is a success? Letting the biggest terrorist attack ever on America happen on your watch is a success?

If you mean successful manipulators, then I'm with you, of course.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you mean successful manipulators, then I'm with you, of course.

Translation: Waaaah we lost! It must be because the people were manipulated/rednecks/stupid it can't actually be that people agree with the Republican policies!

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even smart people can be manipulated, especially when they're too busy to take the time to find the facts, or when the facts are emotionally painful to admit. Michael Moore did it, Bush did it, too. Bush was the better manipulator.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean the red states aren't full of ignorant rednecks that are more influenced by slogans and country songs than long speeches outlining policy?

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't how you heal a country...






...Assholes.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[Politburo]

Now, if you are shooting for failure try putting in Kerry, Edwards, Gore, Nader and Sharpton.

If you think that list of names are "failures" then you have rather high expectations. Let's see:

Kerry: Soldier, War activist, Prosecutor, Senator, Presidential candidate.
Edwards: Lawyer, Senator, Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidate.
Gore: Senator, Vice President, according to some people, President.
Nader: Consumer advocate, Presidential candidate.
Sharpton: Reverend, Community leader, Presidential candidate.

What have you done?

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[raider_red]

See if you can shoehorn in Howard Dean an Terry McAuliffe while you're at it. It'll give Dean something to scream about.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't how you heal a country...

Yeah, the way to heal it is to institute a government program that taxes all of us 1% to buy plane tickets and pay re-location fees for your left wing nutjobs to go to Canada or China. It's obvious you are the minority in this country, and you weren't interested in healing anything in 2000. So why don't you treason monkeys leave if you don't like it.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that list of names are "failures" then you have rather high expectations. Let's see:

I was comparing them to Bush et al, not myself.

Kerry: LOSER in a national election to a weak president.

Edwards: Loser, couldn't even win his homestate for Kerry. He killed his son, and gave his wife breast cancer.

Gore: Loser, couldn't win after 8 years as VP under a popular democratic president.

Nader: Continual loser, not only does he manage to lose pathetically, he screws over the political party closest to him in ideology in an effort to fuel his ego.

Sharpton: Utter loser, reverand and community leader who bilks money from his own people that he should be helping.

What have you done?

Not embarassed myself on a national level, which makes me smarter than all those kooks.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[scharkalvin]

Bush may have managed to get elected president once (was lucky the first time to have the supreme court on his side). He was a total failure as a businessman however, every business he started went bankrupt.

Re:The rules specify the 5 people...

[geg81]

Yes, but with those people in the Rocket, successful re-entry is likely since they are very succssful people.

I doubt it, since gravity is unaffected by lies, smear campaigns, daddy's connections, affectations of a deep Christian faith, the Supreme Court, or fear mongering. That is, the usual dirty tricks of Bush and his staff just don't work against gravity. But they have so successfully used them to cheat their way to the presidency twice that, I suppose, they might feel invincible and give it a try anyway.

Re:

[operand]

So, is this the 2004 edition of Cannonball run?

Where is Jackie Chan when you need him? I need to borrow that Mitsubishi with the Jet packs...

Dr Tongue in Space

[AtariAmarok]

"I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!"

Does anyone else remember the old SCTV storyline in which Dr Tongue (John Candy) launched a space mission? The rocket appeared to be a Saturn V with a Chevy Vega glued to the nose.

Re:Dr Tongue in Space

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the CCCP episode?
You can get it here.

America's Space Prize?

[levell]

I'm a little disappointed with the name. Even if the money is put up by Americans and will almost inevitably be won by an American it just seems a little well clique-y to put America in the title. I'm aware this is private enterprise and they have the right to call it what they like, I'm just a little sad about their choice.

Re:America's Space Prize?

[91degrees]

Read the rest of the article. The winner has to live and do business in the US.

Re:America's Space Prize?

[levell]

I read that, it gives me the same feeling. Even so it could still be a non-American who wins the prize, just be based there...

Re:America's Space Prize?

[Anonymous Coward]

Putting the word "American" in the title is like painting a bullseye on the contest for T3r0r15t5 out there.

Making it a for "Americans-Only" contest proves to the world that the US only cares about itself.

Re:America's Space Prize?

[TopShelf]

quoth the article:

"Another set of the rules for the prize require that any contestant reside and do business in the United States."

Hence the name...

Re:America's Space Prize?

[Anonymous Coward]

Making it a for "Americans-Only" contest proves to the world that the US only cares about itself.

No, last weeks elections proved that. This is just par for the course...

Re:America's Space Prize?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that, it gives me the same feeling. Even so it could still be a non-American who wins the prize, just be based there...

IOW, you need a GreenCard, permanent residency permit, or an H1B...

Re:America's Space Prize?

[julesh]

it just seems a little well clique-y to put America in the title.

Cliquey doesn't begin to cover it. Cliche is the word I'd use.

BTW: Over here in the UK it's illegal to use the word "British" or similar indications in a company or business name without getting official permission first. Does America not have a similar restriction?

Re:America's Space Prize?

[magefile]

Obviously not!

Re:America's Space Prize?

[marsonist]

The Americas is a generic term that refers to both north and south America... How and why would a generic name for a landmass be restricted in its use?

Re:America's Space Prize?

[julesh]

Well, British is a generic term that refers to anything that comes from Britain, but the UK government have still placed restrictions on its use, that means that despite the fact I run a British company that offers Internet consultancy, I can't call it British Internet...

Re:America's Space Prize?

[gzunk]

"Another set of the rules for the prize require that any contestant reside and do business in the United States."

If you can only win it if you live and do business in The United States of America, then calling it "America's Space Price" isn't that misleading - so many people call "USA" "America". Well except if you live elsewhere in the continent of America.

Re:America's Space Prize?

[ultramk]

If it makes you feel any better, you can consider this payback for the EU nixing the Boeing/McDonnell Douglas merger just to give Airbus a leg up.

That was dirty pool.

m-

Re:America's Space Prize?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Germany elect its politicians based on what the rest of the world thinks? France?

Fuck you. Sponsor a goddamn European Space Prize if you're so worked up about it.

(Not an American, heartily sick of pointless US-bashing).

Re:America's Space Prize?

[Nexus Seven]

Over here in the UK it's illegal to use the word "British" or similar indications

No its not. That's just complete bullshit.

Re:America's Space Prize?

[smithmc]

BTW: Over here in the UK it's illegal to use the word "British" or similar indications in a company or business name without getting official permission first. Does America not have a similar restriction?

No, we have the First Amendment instead.

Re:America's Space Prize?

[boringgit]

Legal thing I guess?

Keep it all within one legal territory. Last thing you want is to develop something fantastic, then find that the peoples republic of oingy boingy suddenly decided that it can't be exported.

I would certainly like to hope that it is not a deliberately anti EU policy...

Re:America's Space Prize?

[Anonymous Coward]

You havn't met my friend the USAPATRIOT Act, have you?

Re:America's Space Prize?

[cheekyboy]

Well, that was payback for Boeing killing the concorde in the USA isnt it... since the concorde would have been profitable if it had 200+ planes in its service, but since Boeing didnt make it and it wasnt american, the FAA decided to 'ban it' so there went its largest market and thus its commercial future, so it was stuck in EU + NY with 15 planes that caused it to be unprofitable.

Make an orbit

[freeze128]

I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!

Your taun-taun will freeze before you reach the first marker!

Re:Make an orbit

[Anonymous Coward]

That gave me a funny image of Luke helplessly floating around in orbit yelling "Beeeeennnnnn."

Re:Make an orbit

[Bob Hellbringer]

I'll chip in 50 bucks if they make one that looks like Lonestar's Winnebago!

Finally, a REAL space challenge

[csoto]

There's a huge difference between flying a neato rocket plane like "SpaceShipOne" and actually achieving Low Earth Orbit. This will be a much more difficult challenge!

Re:Finally, a REAL space challenge

[DigitalRaptor]

You are right on both accounts.

But if I were a betting man, my money would still be on Rutan. Someone else may spring up that far surpasses him, but for the non-government people on the scene right now, my money is on Burt.

And my prediction is by the end of 2008.

Re:Finally, a REAL space challenge

[johnjay]

It'd be great if, rather than rebuild Space Ship One from the ground up to be orbital, Scaled Composites did something crazy like invent sky-hooks to accellerate/decellerate SS1.

Re:Finally, a REAL space challenge

[khallow]

"Huge" is relative. This doesn't seem so difficult compared to what has already happened over the past few decades. My hope here is that we eventually have a space-based economy with people living and reproducing in space. Just a toehold and we can join the universe.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[Anonymous Coward]

The risks involved increase polynomially the longer the craft is active.

If people die in the course of attaining this prize, say goodbye to private space travel and hello to new laws and regulations. The chilling effect from "Columbia" is nothing compared to what will happen if a private attempt goes wrong.

This contest also has the potential to create an international incident.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[rdurell]

This kind of thinking amazes me. I wonder if DeSoto, Columbus, Magellan or Marco Polo had to worry about such ramifications.

Humans, by thier very nature, are explorers. If someone wants to strap a raocket to thier butt and blast themsellves into space, so be it. People will die in the name of exploration... Five hundred years ago losing five men on an expedition would mean relatviely little (impact to thier families notwithstanding). Why is it so different today. Do our lives now mean that much more than then?

Of course, I understand the need to keep others safe. If the aforementioned butt-rocket man were to accidentally explode over my house and injure my family I'd be pissed. But let's not take this to the extreme.

Exploration and risk go hand in hand. Something tells me there is a happy medium between the two that will allow us to explore while mitigating the risk to others.

For the record, yes I would strap a rocket to my butt in a heart beat if I thought I could get into space, orbit and return safely.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[JaredOfEuropa]

If people die in the course of attaining this prize, say goodbye to private space travel and hello to new laws and regulations.

Sooooo..... we should not do anything to get private space travel going, because an accident might end private space travel. Huh?

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[aardvarkjoe]

If people die in the course of attaining this prize, say goodbye to private space travel and hello to new laws and regulations.

Yep. Just look at what happened when people first died in a private automotive accident. The government stepped in, and now we're all back to horse and buggy.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[Anonymous Coward]

oh shut up

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[whats_a_zip]

"..hello to new laws and regulations. The chilling effect from "Columbia" is nothing compared to what will happen if a private attempt goes wrong." Great. Let's get lawyers involved. Everyone knows lawyers and regulation really spur innovation. And, you really think a private accident would make the Columbia disaster look trival? Columbia was tragic, I doubt any private disater could be worse. Human loss is human loss.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[mooingyak]

The risks involved increase polynomially

polynomially??? What's a polynomial increase in risk? Is that a lot?

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[mr_snarf]

Don't go outside! Theres germs everywhere! Don't go for a walk, you could trip over and hurt yourself! Don't open your eyes, you might go blind! Don't ....

Risk is part of life. Some people can deal with greater risks than other people. Nothing will get done if no one takes any risks.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[Anonymous Coward]

The risks involved increase polynomially the longer the craft is active.

You knucklehead. Quit trying to sound like you have the first damn clue what you're talking about.

If people die in the course of attaining this prize, say goodbye to private space travel and hello to new laws and regulations. The chilling effect from "Columbia" is nothing compared to what will happen if a private attempt goes wrong.

Bullshit. So a space shuttle blew up. Ooops. Shit happens. People know space flight is dangerous.

I'll bet you're still waiting for Big Brother to outlaw bungee jumping, Big Macs, cars with more than 70 hp, contact sports, and sex with strangers.

This contest also has the potential to create an international incident.

LOL. The sky is falling! Right ... because a 5 man spaceship burning or breaking up on reentry is so much more dangerous than a crashing commuter plane. While you're at it, why don't you crawl under your bed and tremble with helpless fear because somewhere, an airline pilot is walking from a bar to a cockpit?

Hysterical moron. Shut up.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[Suidae]

Too many people forget that the object of life is not necessarily to live as long as possible.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[khallow]

" The risks involved increase polynomially the longer the craft is active."

Given that you can't do worse than totally trash the vehicle, kill everyone on it, and run into something on the ground that's kind of pricy, you are refering to a degree zero polynomial.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[Vicsun]

That's exactly the point. The government is more restrictive now than ever before. Some hundred years ago the idea that if you go out at sea with a ship you'll never return was pretty common. Now, the death of six austronauts is presented as a great tragedy. Not to troll, but it is not. While regrettable, the loss of six lives is insignificant in the long term, especially when the people knew the risks and chose to go ahead anyway.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[Politburo]

This kind of thinking amazes me. I wonder if DeSoto, Columbus, Magellan or Marco Polo had to worry about such ramifications.

I would think, in a sense, that they did. Columbus and others didn't get the money to go around the world from their ass. Most of it came from the European monarchs. Had Columbus not been successful, do you think there would have been many more expeditions to the West? I don't know enough of the history to say.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[Anonymous Coward]

Good analogy bonehead.

If cars had the chance to destroy city buildings when they failed (like a rocket could), the first failure of a car might have driven us back to buggies.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[NardofDoom]

Five hundred years ago most people didn't make it past two years old, and plagues shut down whole cities. Death was all around them, *that's* why they didn't mind if they never came back from explorations.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[Bob The Cowboy]

If the aforementioned butt-rocket man were to accidentally explode over my house and injure my family I'd be pissed.

Seriously man, that would be...

shitty.

Sorry, sorry... I couldn't help myself

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[Teancum]

It could be argued that the Portuguese already knew about the Americas before Columbus, and certain there is evidence that Irish monks and Viking sailors made it to North America before 1500 A.D. There is even a Viking settlement in Newfoundland that seems to be authenticated pretty well, and is now a U.N. World Cultural Heritage site.

The Portuguese were more likely to take advantage of trade with the Americas, but it wasn't until Columbus started to publicize what he found that they finally decided to go to Brazil and claim at least part of the territory. In this case exploration was helped considerably when two major world powers decided to go head to head in a non-military way... just as the competition between the USSR and the USA paved the way for the Apollo program. When France and England decided to get into the game things really took off, followed by colonial grabs by Russian, Germany, and Italy.

I think it is no small part with some new nations entering the space race (China and India for now) that things are starting to shake loose again for major space exploration (and not just space transportation systems). That together with a much better understanding of the issued involved with getting into space in the first place.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[deblau]

No, but government intervention gave us seatbelt laws, speed limits, and motorcycle helmet laws. Not to mention the third brake light, child safety seat regs, smog inspections and emissions maxima, mandatory recalls, and any of about six hundred other governmental regulations I can think of off the top of my head. The requirements for brakes alone would scare the hell out of anyone with a shred of sanity. Adhering to all of these regs costs money, enough to make it prohibitively expensive to start a new car company.

Now imagine if they start imposing "seatbelt" laws on space travel to keep people safe.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[XNormal]

The risks involved increase polynomially the longer the craft is active.

According to this logic, you wouldn't want to go on an airplane crossing the pacific. It depends on the hardware working perfectly for many hours.

A spacecraft is only really "active" for a few minute on takeoff and landing.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[Rubyflame]

Yeah, right. If that were true, McDonald's would go out of business.

Re:Sounds like a recipe for disaster

[DerekLyons]

This kind of thinking [legal ramifications] amazes me. I wonder if DeSoto, Columbus, Magellan or Marco Polo had to worry about such ramifications.

No, they didn't. But then they were explorers. The folks riding SpaceShip Two and the notional America's Space Prize winners.. Aren't.

Humans, by thier very nature, are explorers.

Actually, they aren't. The vast majority of humans are, by nature, stay-at-home and raise-the-kids. The explorers and risk takes are an infintesmal minority. Their overwhelming importance to human history doesn't change that simple fact.

Exploration and risk go hand in hand. Something tells me there is a happy medium between the two that will allow us to explore while mitigating the risk to others.

There already is such a happy medium. Thousands of explorers and scientists across the globe are living in it even as we type.

But don't confuse them with amusment park riders (SS1/SS2) or extreme tourists (Bigelow's hotel scheme).

80% reusable?

[bulletman]

The rules say that only 20% of the vehicule can be expendable. Why have this requirement at all? If someone can send a ship cheaply and reliably that doesn't meet this rule, then why not?

Stephen

Re:80% reusable?

[Detritus]

It forces the builder to design something new, instead of just another overgrown ICBM from the 1950s.

Re:80% reusable?

[tepples]

Then begin your rationalizing by claiming that the part that lifts off is the 20 percent, and the launch pad is the 80 percent.

Re:80% reusable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything that is expendable will have to be replaced at a certain time. That's going to cost time and money.

Unless it's really dirt cheap then maybe you're right.

Re:80% reusable?

[FatherKabral]

Expendable = unnecessary = wasteful

Perhaps the organizers wish to not pollute or rape the earth to get this task completed, but instead want to see it done in the most efficient way possible.

Re:80% reusable?

[Zarniwoop_Editor]

Can the crew be part of the expendable 20%?

Might save on life support overhead for the two orbits. ;-)

Re:80% reusable?

[Peyna]

20% of 4 people, so you can lose 80% of one person (or 20% of each person). I guess so long as everyone comes back with a head, torso, and at least 2 limbs, or only one person comes back as a preserved head, you've got it.

Re:80% reusable?

[Peyna]

Ah, I read it wrong, it says 5 people. I guess you can dump one of the passengers to save weight on re-entry if necessary.

Re:80% reusable?

[xnot]

Because they have to specify some constraints, otherwise the contest would be too easy.

The idea is to create a vehicle that can provide consistant access to space, not to make something that has to be thrown away. The Shuttle is due to retire in 2010, so obviously we are going to need something to replace it by then.

Re:80% reusable?

[magefile]

Would this perhaps be a way of saving money at NASA? I.e., a private company selling these things to the government? Meaning that, rather than companies paying NASA to run their space program (to get satellites into space), NASA pays other companies for the vehicle (or perhaps, in some cases, just for the ride).

Re:80% reusable?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Especially considering that a vehicle attempting to reach orbital speed is essentially a fuel tank strapped on top of a controlled explosion.

Re:80% reusable?

[psetzer]

It's engineering dick-waving and a common misconception. The idea is that you can get the design and refurbishment costs down below just rebuilding the item. This sounds like it's doable, but in reality it's really damn difficult. Just to keep weight down, you end up having to engineer stuff to the limits of its ability to work.

One example that most people would understand would be race cars. A normal car's engine revs up to something like 7-8000 rpm. An F1 race car can hit up to 15000 rpm, which works out to about four times the stress on the engine otherwise. They try to keep the engine as light as possible, so for something lighter than my car's engine that produces ten times the horsepower, they had to make a compromise somewhere. They run it for one race, and send it back to the factory for refurbishment.

The reason that they do things that way is simply because they need the performance, and making an engine that can handle those stresses for long periods of time is either impossible, or more expensive than the alternative. NASA can, or could before the cold war ended, spend all the money it needed coming up with the design it wanted. You don't want Commies in space, do you?

With all of that out of the way, this requirement was basically decided upon by someone who thought that this would be closer in concept to making a family sedan than to making a race car. Today's sedans are faster than yesteryear's race cars, so there is hope that building with the sedan model will eventually be able to be made more cheaply than the race car model, which is currently cheaper.

Re:80% reusable?

[Rxke]

If you can build something reusable +and+ use it a lot, costs go down significantly

Non-reusable has the drawback you have to re-build your hardware again and again...
Shuttle is expensive because its not really reusable, more refurbishable, and it doesn't launch often. While down it still costs money, for keeping it operational, paying launchguys twiddling their fingers etc...
Same with planes: cost +a lot+ to buy, but if you use them a lot, operation costs go down fast . A plane in a hangar is losing money, it's got to fly.

My bet is Bigelow wants lots of launches, heehee

Re:80% reusable?

[p3d0]

You know, this is HTML. You don't have to use plusses for emphasis.

Re:80% reusable?

[cosmo7]

Expendable = unnecessary = wasteful

Not necessarily. Or even at all. For example, a reusable craft is going to require more heat shielding because more of the craft is returning. The extra weight means more energy to reach orbit, which means more waste.

Perhaps the organizers wish to not pollute or rape the earth to get this task completed

Rockets launching to orbit is never going to be ecologically sound, whether the spacecraft is reusable or not. The best you can hope for is that the resulting science or economic advantage is worth the damage inflicted.

Re:80% reusable?

[krysith]

I'd say that works for railguns, cannons, etc...

Re:80% reusable?

[DerekLyons]

The rules say that only 20% of the vehicule can be expendable. Why have this requirement at all? If someone can send a ship cheaply and reliably that doesn't meet this rule, then why not?

Because the basic principle of extended operations is this: Expendable, Cheap, Reliable - Pick any two.

Seriously. If you want long term cheap, reliable, and reasonable performance; the trick is to amortize your costs for a single vehicle across a *lot* of flights, this is bean counting 101. (Laugh at the bean counters all you want, but without them, and competition, airline flights would not be as cheap as they are.)

Re:80% reusable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider 'expendable' on the Shuttle. 2 SRB shells are used up, and plummet back. If you 'chute them, they're reusable. The external tank is too high and too big, so it'd go splat or burn up.

The trick to getting out of a gravity well is always weight, and reducing weight to orbit. The shuttle is completely inefficient: it carries all the weight of wings and landing gear and etc which it only uses to land as a horrid glider.

The glider concept works wells for suborbital, since the wings are always (slightly) effective. But, for this prize and pure launch capabilities, it's time to bring back Mercury: the simple minimalist capsule.

Even then you'll need to return stages to the ground. So do it smart: SRBs to get off the ground. Parachute them back. Weight loss: couple of parachute cover panels. At SRBSEP, launch a smaller vehicle, effectively a White Knight+SS1 combo, where WK in this case is an unmanned fuel/motor combination. Fire this, carry to its fuel end, and separate the capsule+service module. Then, here's the difference: WK being far from orbital, it can glide home for an unmanned landing. Weight loss: none. Service module fires to orbit, la la la, re-entry like Mercury, splashdown somewhere, probably on land so as to save naval costs. Weight loss: Stage 3 motor, possibly.

But, yeah, the design shift is totally going to be about getting stage 2 home, and reducing stage 3's weight.

Do you have room for...

[Savage-Rabbit]

... Schröder, Chirac, Blair, Sharon and Berlusconi on the second trip?

Re:Do you have room for...

[Aerion]

... Schröder, Chirac, Blair, Sharon and Berlusconi on the second trip?

You forgot Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland!

Learner Drivers...

[RobertTaylor]

"Bigelow Aerospace will be hiring astronauts, as well as conduct the training of "space novices""

NASA does intense training; will these new spacecraft pilots have heat resistant learner plates?! ;)

Re:Learner Drivers...

[fourtwo]

" Bigelow Aerospace ... training of 'space novices'"

I thought they prefered to be called Amatures.

Space Flight Contest

[rb4havoc]

Seems easy enough...now, only if I had 4 friends up at NASA...

Re:Space Flight Contest

[Anonymous Coward]

Has NASA even done what it takes to win this prize? If they mean the *same* spacecraft and not just type of space craft. I think NASA has not flown two shuttle mission with the same shuttle back to back.

America only?

[onion2k]

Another set of the rules for the prize require that any contestant reside and do business in the United States.

Err.. right. OK. Thats very philanthropic of Burt.

No, wait, its not. Its a load of stupid "America is teh best!" crap. He really doesn't give a shit about making life better for humanity, just his own little country. Heres hoping China and India's space programmes kick the flying bastard shit out of Burt and NASA alike.

Re:America only?

[Quixote]

It is not Burt Rutan who's offering this prize but Bob Bigelow. RTFA, please.

Re:America only?

[mOoZik]

WTF are you talking about? What does Burt have anything to do with this? Also realize that by moving the contest rules to the U.S., this will have the potential to bring great minds at one central location to tackle the task. It's a fact that materials, services, and general cooperation is much better in the U.S. than abroad. But yes, it is also very America-centric, but hey, if you have $50 mil, start your own contest with your own rules, instead of bitching about someone else's. It should also be noted that Bigelow is doing this for the promotion of his own inflatable modules, not for the betterment of humanity.

Re:America only?

[CrimsonAvenger]

He's not aiming for philanthropy. He's aiming for having access to manned launch vehicles to support his own orbital habitat module, which he intends to have in space in the same time-frame.

Note that he's doing this because he thinks US government competition for available Soyuz will quickly price Soyuz beyond the reach of his business model.

Re:America only?

[the_weasel]

Others have already pointed out that you have attributed the prize to the wrong person.

The rest of your statement is absurd. Don't like an American contest like this? Scrounge together your own 10 million and offer a contest of your own. Surely there are rich companies and coporations in your part of the world that can pony up the cash?

When I look to donate money to a cause, I don't donate to an "adopt an african child" program, I donate to a local foodbank. When I volunteer time, I don't go to South America and build schools, I help Habitat for Humanity.

I can't help the whole world, and these charities and organizations focus on my neighbours and the people in my community. One could even say that my actions are not altruistic, as these are the same neighbours and community my children and family live in. They may one day need the help of these services.

Not every action and event has to be balanced for some metric of global fairness.

A desire to foster innovation and advancement in your own country is only reasonable. Since this is private money, it can be used any way he wants to.

Re:America only?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think his reasoning is "American is the best!". If you do business with someone in the US they are subjected to american law. If you do business out of country then you can be easy swindled and there is no legal recourse.

Re:America only?

[MikeBabcock]

I see a lot of responses that are just as american centric as the poster accuses the prize rules of being. I'm canadian for example, and we had a contestant that was very close to having their ship into space in time for the X prize, but they won't be trying their novel approach to space travel in the US for this prize -- they live here.

If you want to push for america, then push for it -- if you want space travel, then open it to the world. If you want a reasonable limit, tell them they have to commercialize and license their technology if they win.

Re:America only?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus loves America. When will you realize that? It's time to move here.

Re:America only?

[smithmc]

No, wait, its not. Its a load of stupid "America is teh best!" crap. He really doesn't give a shit about making life better for humanity, just his own little country. Heres hoping China and India's space programmes kick the flying bastard shit out of Burt and NASA alike.

Or maybe he has perceived that the US is losing ground to India and China, and needs a little boost.

Suppose a contest like this were to start up in, say, China. Do you think American teams would be invited to play? I kinda doubt it, don't you?

Re:America only?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone seems so focused on the 'Oh, my, it's only open to Americans, how ego-centric!' angle.

Think of it from a business point of view. This corp is putting up $50 million, and they require that your ship must demonstrate the ability to dock with their space platform. Perhaps they simply want to STEAL your ship design, and they can only legally do so if your ship/corp/team comes from the USA?

Re:America only?

[brainstyle]

I could be wrong, but I imagine that there are ways to get around this. A number of software companies in Canada, are technically American, with their headquarters based in someone's basement office or something, while all of the work is done in Canada. I imagine something similiar could be done for this thing.

Re:America only?

[npsimons]

When I look to donate money to a cause, I don't donate to an "adopt an african child" program, I donate to a local foodbank. When I volunteer time, I don't go to South America and build schools, I help Habitat for Humanity.

Indeed. The saying "think globally, act locally" comes to mind. Most people *can't* act globally. Even those that can would be wise to invest their efforts in the country that made it possible for them to make those efforts in the first place. It encourages and reinforces good systems. I'm glad to see that at least one person with great power (in the form of finances) has recognized that it is a bad idea to turn your back on the country that made you rich.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not an isolationist or anti-anyone-but-america type person. It's just that I think that if other countries tried improving from the bottom up through freedom and improving quality of life, they could reap the benefits America has seen. Not that America's perfect (and steadily getting worse), but it's done fairly well so far.

restrictive condition?

[Anonymous Coward]

The contestant must have its principal place of business in the United States of America.

Isn't this is very restrictive and unfair?

Re:restrictive condition?

[Zapdos]

The company offering the cash, is in the U.S. and wants to do business with the winning company, not the country it came from.

Re:restrictive condition?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's the one running the contest with his money, so he gets to make the rules.

If you've got some spare $millions laying around, you can create your own contest and set the rules as restrictive or broad as you want.

Re:restrictive condition?

[PerlMonkey]

Yes. It's also unfair that they just don't give you the money outright, and make you actually work for it.

Re:restrictive condition?

[Have Blue]

When you have $50 million dollars, you can run your own space contest and demand that the winner perform their orbit attempts while wearing "I'M WITH STUPID" T-shirts. Bigelow has the $50 million right now so he gets to make his own rules.

Re:restrictive condition?

[gears5665]

No. Not unfair. We've been involved in the world for a long time (to our(USA) detriment), a little bit of isolationism is good for America. I hope to see the USA pull out of the rest of the world and stop buying goods from the rest of the world. It's time to get back to basic fundamentals which means you've got to help yourself (America) before you can go around and help other people (World who can't afford to spend 50$ Million on a private space race).

Re:restrictive condition?

[DerekLyons]

The contestant must have its principal place of business in the United States of America.

Isn't this is very restrictive and unfair?

Yes, it's restrictive and unfair. Welcome to the real world, which is frequently restrictive and unfair. Start liking it.

Bigelow is operating an American company from American soil, thus he has to operate under American law. Said laws get awfully pissy about transferring or enabling ICBM technology outside of American borders.

Orbital Mechanics

[hugg]

Now, using a rubber band would be impractical -- when you apply an impulse to an idealized orbit, the trajectory will change but it will always return to the same point at which you applied the impulse. Therefore your Gremlin would crash into the Earth's surface. You would need a second rubber band floating in space to actually reach orbit.

Now, this is *unless* you take advantage of perturbations of a second body -- like the Moon -- to alter your trajectory enough to bring the perigee up to 400 km. This is what I am assuming you meant.

Sincerely,
Pedant McGee

Re:Orbital Mechanics

[wibskey]

hrrmm.. most slashdotters probably wouldn't know much how to "take advantage of perturbations of a second body"...

Re:Orbital Mechanics

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Not true.

With a large enough slingshot, a vehicle that is shot out at 17,000 mph will settle into low Earth orbit. Only it would be incinerated by atmospheric friction before it left the slingshot.

Assuming you had a thermal insulation system (and were able to goose the speed higher still enough to overcome air resistance over the travel of the spacecraft) the shorter the "travel" of your slingshot, the more you are creating a backward's car accident. The occupants, their internal organs, etc will experience stresses proportional to the change in speed of the craft.

Assume you had a slingshot that could accellerate someone to 20,000mph. You have to pull back the slug, so let's say it's a REALLY big slingshot, where you pull the thing back REALLY far. 20,000 mph=10288.9m/s. Gravity is 9.8 m/s^2. If the thing shot of of the slingshot in 1 second, the craft would experience 1000gs.

That said, researchers have modeled mass drivers (i.e. really big slingshots) for launching material from the moon's surface to lunar orbit, where the atmoshere is almost non-existant.

Re:Orbital Mechanics

[Anonymous Coward]

With a large enough slingshot, a vehicle that is shot out at 17,000 mph will settle into low Earth orbit.

No it wont. Assuming we have no disturbance forces except the central spherical body gravity (earth) an orbit is "constant", that is, the craft will go through the exact same inertial points for each orbit. Assuming you start on the surface of earth with only a simple impulse to give you velocity you will orbit the earth and then return to the exact same point for the next lap. Only that the other side of the earth will sort of be in the way... You need to adjust the velocity vector once at approiate height to stay in orbit.

Re:Orbital Mechanics

[hugg]

There's also the unlikely situation of a craft that could generate enough lift via the atmosphere to pull its perigee out of the center of the Earth. I think these would have to be some very large wings however :)

Re:Orbital Mechanics

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you shoot yourself and the Gremlin off the top of Mount Everest, you could select your initial velocity such that the timing of your orbit and the timing of the Earth's rotation mean you never hit Everest again, no?

Re:Orbital Mechanics

[EvilTwinSkippy]

You run into the problem that wings increase drag, AND that once you get out of the lower layers of the atmosphere they cease to do anything for you. (No air=no difference in pressure=no lift)

Re:Orbital Mechanics

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Er, no. You are neglecting that the mechanics involved are vectors for which the conditions change over time. If you fired a projectile at a 45 degree angle up, the more velocity you impart on it, the farther it will travel. Granted.

BUT there is a point at which the destination point will be beyond the curvature of the Earth. The curvature of the Earth over a small distance is negligable, but over several miles it gets to be a factor. So you get a little extra range, and the impact angle (neglecting changes in momentum due to air resistance) will be shallower.

Go faster still and the projectile misses the surface of the Earth entirely. Adding more speed increases the altitude at which gravity and the craft's momentum balance Each other out until the path becomes a circle, aka an orbit.

Re:Orbital Mechanics

[p3d0]

Sorry, you're wrong, chief. Ignoring air resistance, and assuming only ideal two-body gravitation, all obrits pass through the point at which the final impulse was exerted.

Re:Orbital Mechanics

[EvilTwinSkippy]

That doesn't jive at all with orbital mechanics.

First off, this isn't "ideal two-body gravitation". And even IN ideal two-body gravitation there is no gaurentee that a body will pass over the same point twice. (At least if you are modeling the system as two particles in a discrete time simulation.)

You fire a ping pong ball off at an angle in a vacuum with enough velocity to sustain orbit. At first the ball travels in a straight line. Over the course of the flight, gravity bends the flight path, If you balance everything out right, the ball settles into a circular orbit. Too much momentum (escape velocity) and the ball flies off into space. Too little and it doesn't orbit. It falls back to Earth.

The "point of final impulse" is really the place in which we start traveling perpendicular to gravity vector. For rockets we control that with a final nudge of energy. With projectiles it's something you would build into your launch calculations. (Or equip the craft with an orbital maneuvering system.)

Re:Orbital Mechanics

[p3d0]

Dude, you're way, way off. Here is a good, cheap book that covers the fundamentals if you are interested.

To begin with, you seem to assume that all orbits are circular. In reality, they are conic sections, and can be circular, elliptical, parabolic, or hyperbolic. Parabolic and hyperbolic orbits escape into space. Circular and elliptical orbits are the interesting ones.

With that in mind, let me address your statements...

First off, this isn't "ideal two-body gravitation".

Ok. Let's take this in the context of your earlier statement that "With a large enough slingshot, a vehicle that is shot out at 17,000 mph will settle into low Earth orbit." I was being generous in assuming perfect two-body gravitation, but let's do it your way and account for perturbations too. The first and most obvious one is air resistance, which slows the vehicle and only makes it harder (much harder) to get to orbit, making your statement that much more false. All other perturbations pale in comparison.

And even IN ideal two-body gravitation there is no gaurentee that a body will pass over the same point twice. (At least if you are modeling the system as two particles in a discrete time simulation.)

Wrong. In two-body gravitation, a satellite in an elliptical or circular orbit will follow the same path on every orbit, passing through exactly the same points. If your discrete-time simulation doesn't reproduce this behaviour, then your simulator is broken.

You fire a ping pong ball off at an angle in a vacuum with enough velocity to sustain orbit. At first the ball travels in a straight line.

Wrong. It follows a conic section from the moment the applied force stops. The ping pong ball would only travel in a straight line if it were travelling directly toward the center of gravity, or if there were no net gravity.

The "point of final impulse" is really the place in which we start traveling perpendicular to gravity vector.

Wrong. A satellite only travels perpendicular to the gravity vector at periapsis and apoapsis. There's no reason the final impulse must be applied at these points.

Re:Orbital Mechanics

[p3d0]

I agree with what you say until this:

Each other out until the path becomes a circle, aka an orbit.

This is wrong. Ignoring air resistance, if you give the projectile enough speed, and it will cruise out in an elliptical orbit for at most one turn around the Earth. The best case scenario is that it will impact on the spot where it was launched. If you want a sustained orbit, you need to give a second boost somewhere off the ground to raise your periapsis and keep your orbit from intersecting the Earth's surface.

Prize money not enough...

[mOoZik]

I don't think the prize money is enough. It cost about half that to attain something much less by SpaceShipOne. My guess is that it will cost closer to $100 mil to do such a thing and claim the prize. Furthermore, I think the timespan is too short. It took 8 years for someone to claim the Ansari prize. How can we expect something much difficult to be accomplished in much less time? Sure, some of the development is in place by the teams that lost, but there are many hurdles to be overcome for orbital flight.

Re:Prize money not enough...

[ceejayoz]

SpaceShipOne cost $20 mil, and they won $10 mil.

Your estimate on this is $100 mil, and the prize is $50 mil.

Get half your money back both times.

As for the timespan, didn't Rutan start just a few years back? Plus, that initial work is done, it makes for something of a stepping off point.

Re:Prize money not enough...

[CrimsonAvenger]

I don't think the prize money is enough. It cost about half that to attain something much less by SpaceShipOne. My guess is that it will cost closer to $100 mil to do such a thing and claim the prize.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any examples of Prize-motivated activities where the Prize covered development costs. People do this sort of thing for the fame, not the money.

Re:Prize money not enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

It took 8 years for someone to claim the Ansari prize. How can we expect something much difficult to be accomplished in much less time?

It's kind of like that paper you had to write in school that you had 5 weeks to do, and you know it would only take you a few days, but you still would end up starting on it the night before it was due. I mean this isn't exactly rocket science, oh wait...

Re:Prize money not enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

And get huge contracts and everything else that goes along with what you did. I think the prize is just a way to get public attention drawn to it.

Re:Prize money not enough...

[DerekLyons]

I don't think the prize money is enough. It cost about half that to attain something much less by SpaceShipOne. My guess is that it will cost closer to $100 mil to do such a thing and claim the prize.

Reality is, the money isn't made by winning the prize, but by selling the prizewinning design. (As Rutan is doing.)

It took 8 years for someone to claim the Ansari prize. How can we expect something much difficult to be accomplished in much less time?

In reality, it took about two years for someone to claim the prize. For the first six years it was somewhat of a joke, that changed when it got fully funded.

What would be funny now

[Timesprout]

Is if India or China set up a corp in the US and win it.

Re:What would be funny now

[I confirm I'm not a]

Brazil's now got its own rocket for satellite launches - and it's America's Space Price and technically Brazil's in America... ;)

Re:What would be funny now

[TehHustler]

It would be like the Anti-Outsourcing.

Re:What would be funny now

[I confirm I'm not a]

Replying to my own post and wrecking my own joke...
The contestant must have its principal place of business in the United States of America.

...well that rules out Brazil, then :(

Re:What would be funny now

[will_die]

Rules require that they don't get funding or help from a government. Only exception is that they can test on a government lauch facility.

Probably much more useful than SS1

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Rutan's accomplishment was impressive, but as has been pointed out in other discussions, it was essentially a high-flying airplane rather than a true spaceship, and doesn't scale well. Anyone who wins this prize will have built something much more directly applicable to real space travel.

Which isn't to say I don't want Rutan, or someone else whose approach is essentially aviation-based rather than big-boom-straight-up-based, to get it. When I was a kid, I spent endless hours reading my Dad's old 50's sci-fi collection, and somewhere in the back of my mind is the idea that a real spaceship has a needle nose and delta wings ...

Re:Probably much more useful than SS1

[Wyatt Earp]

How do you know SS1 doesn't scale well? Did you see the documentary on Scaled that was on the Discover Channel? Scaled has plans for an orbiter vehicle with a big old booster.

Re:Probably much more useful than SS1

[Anonymous Coward]

"somewhere in the back of my mind is the idea that a real spaceship has a needle nose and delta wings ..."

Everyone knows that real spaceships are saucer-shaped.

Re:Probably much more useful than SS1

[hplasm]

No, no! Real spaceships have fins and fire at one end, a point at the other end and a chequered band half way along. And they land on the fins. And a looong ladder comes down the side. Etc.

Re:Probably much more useful than SS1

[Have Blue]

What Rutan and the X Prize accomplished was to prove that the privatized/philanthropic approach to space development can work. The X Prize could have been an utter failure and we would all have forgotten about it by now, but instead it provided impetus for this much larger and more ambitious (and expensive and risky) contest.

Re:Probably much more useful than SS1

[painandgreed]

Rutan's accomplishment was impressive, but as has been pointed out in other discussions, it was essentially a high-flying airplane rather than a true spaceship, and doesn't scale well. Anyone who wins this prize will have built something much more directly applicable to real space travel.

Sorry, but high-flying airplanes are the way to go. Being able to fly into space and use the atmosphere's oxygen to do so has great advantages. The ideal orbital craft will probalby end up being some sort of plane/ramjet/scramjet/rocket combo. Pure rockets are the brute force method that the US had to use to match the Russians rather than continue with their own X planes. Until then, it was thought that we'd simply go higher and faster till we got there. Now that the Cold War is over, we're back on that track because that will be the cheapest and easiest way in the long run.

Pure rockets will be used when they're the only things that will work. Once in space, you'll get on board a space station and change over to a space craft rather than an orbital craft. Even then, they'll be used for quick trips with other solutions used for many unmanned trips. Solar sails, ion drives, etc., although slower, will be perfectly fine for things like probes and freight shipments. Once we can get into orbit successfully, then it wil be the time to research true spaceships.

Re:Probably much more useful than SS1

[Schwarzchild]

"Rutan's accomplishment was impressive, but as has been pointed out in other discussions, it was essentially a high-flying airplane rather than a true spaceship, and doesn't scale well."

I'm not sure you know what you're talking about. Maybe you do but then again maybe not. Rutan was interviewed on 60 minutes this last Sunday and he showed Ed Bradley his plans for a multipassenger spacecraft and orbiting hotel. It looks like he has big plans if only he can get the funding to complete his dreams.

Another thing that was interesting from the program was that he said that sometimes he doesn't know how to do something and so he will challenge himself to stumble where he does not know how to tread. He developed the "feather" concept in this manner. It sounds very intriguing and it's his way to make that kind of travel safe.

An X-prize for energy production?

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been tossed around for a bit.

What if there was X-prize for something like cold fusion? Would there be a flurry of activity to produce a cheap, pollution free energy source?

Space is great. The tech spinoffs are great. But for an increasingly crowded world. Wouldn't a race for cheap energy make more sense?

Re:An X-prize for energy production?

[DerWulf]

if there was an X-prize for finding the tooth fairy, it still couldn't be found.

Re:An X-prize for energy production?

[Shihar]

I doubt there would be fusion power tommorrow even if there was an X prize for it. The thing you need to realize is that the X prize was so succesful because the technology was already there. To beat fusion you just need to pour research money into it. To beat space, you just need to figure out how to use what we already have to do a little more. I am not saying fusion is a waste, but just offering up a couple million to beat the problem is not going to solve it.

Re:An X-prize for energy production?

[amorsen]

Another reason the X-prize was so succesful is that it was a problem noone had thought needed solving. There really isn't much of a point in going 100km up and then back down. It is simply done for fun, which is fine, but there are severe limits to how much society can spend on fun for a few.

Lighten up.

[Anonymous Coward]

" The risks involved increase polynomially the longer the craft is active."

I don't mean this the way this sounds, but I think you made this up completely. You may be right. But I don't see any data to support this.

"If people die in the course of attaining this prize"

People die skydiving, scuba diving, bungee jumping, skiing... all the time. Unlike many people, I don't think the loss of a spacecraft with 6 people on board is any more tragic than the loss of 6 people in a minivan accident on the freeway.

"say goodbye to private space travel and hello to new laws and regulations."

New laws and regulations are inevitable anyway. Or did you think Virgin Airlines (Branson) is just going to fire up Spaceship one and start taking reservations? Its really hard getting FCC certified for any kind of commercial flights.

"The chilling effect from "Columbia" is nothing compared to what will happen if a private attempt goes wrong."

What chilling effect? The space shuttle is a piece of crap; it should be grounded because its too expensive.

"This contest also has the potential to create an international incident."

So does fingerprinting and retina scanning all foreigners entering the country, but that doesn't seem to have stopped us.

Stop worrying about the sky falling.

Re:Lighten up.

[bmorris]

Its really hard getting FCC certified for any kind of commercial flights.

Yeah, I suspect it's _very_ difficult to get the Federal Communications Commission to certify any sort of flight, commercial or private. Perhaps it would be easier through the FAA?

Re:Lighten up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should shut the fuck up?

Re:Lighten up.

[21chrisp]

The space shuttle is a piece of crap; it should be grounded because its too expensive.

The shuttle is, without a doubt, too expensive; but saying its a piece of crap seems off the deep end. It is still cutting edge technology as far as space flight is concerned. It's also the only craft ever created up to this point that can construct a station in orbit (Russian stations were not able to be built this way, thus had much more limitations).

The shuttle may be dramatic overkill for getting people and cargo to orbit, but don't insult the machine or engineers who built it because of that! It's quite amazing that they were able to build such a thing with technology developed in the 60s and 70s. We still can't do much better today, and our next generation vehicle will almost surely be more limited than the shuttle. The shuttle excels at what it was designed to do, the problem is that the US government wanted it to do too much.

Re:Lighten up.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Stop worrying about the sky falling."

Actually, that's pretty much the ONLY thing that worries me about commercial space travel...

Re:Lighten up.

[LakeSolon]

Damn, someone beat me to the FAA/FCC comment. Ah well, off to find something else to be pedantic about.

Please clarify

[eclectro]

Do the crew members have to be alive, or can you use corpses with a computer for guidance?

Easier to find volunteers that way.

Re:Please clarify

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is fairly easy to find volunteers, some people would like their names to be placed in history, even if it cost them their lives.

I for sure would like to go, but I am a computer architect in training, not a pilot... so I don't know how my skills would help them (excluding development on the ground).

more space and more resource

[Gibouille]

Also once humanity will have established colonies outside of earth, any military or ecological doomsday may terminate human life on this planet but not human life as a whole. Wether or not that is an improvement is debatable.

You'll still own your space ship and all the tech

[3770]

Remember, after you win the money, if you do. You still own your space ship and all the technology and your company. If that isn't worth $50 mill then you are out of luck, but there is a good chance that it is.

Re:anti-slash?

[Nova1313]

what if he wanted that? Perhaps mocking something. I'm not trying to be a troll or anything as you have clearly done that task yourself. I was just wondering if perhaps it's not a mistake. Only time will tell if he changes it or not...

Am I the only one?

[Reaper9889]

I read the title alitle bit fast so I thought that it said "Rules set for 50 million", and I thought hey thats differnetly the plan! 1. Get 50 mio. 2. Make an change to the IP laws so they favours you. 3. Profit!!! Look this is one of the good ones. We know step 2!!! Btw. Missread the title and 1,2,3 ALL in one post. WOW ;)

So...

[Chembryl]

Scuba diving really does compare to being strapped to x-hundred tonnes of liquified gas.... oh wait.

So entirely stupid reasons

[tod_miller]

The idea that we should escape the world and live in space...

Why not jsut say lets live on water? Sure as heck easier to get to, and you can have sub-aqua settlements for those hoping to have gone to space.

Benefits of living on water:

No rocket accidents
Cheaper to ferry supplies
Less Gamma radiation
If the global warming occurs, water prices (like land prices, get it!) will plummet! Coastal regions will always be prime real-estate! (for the land views)
You can use desalinisation to drink sea water, you can use devacuumisation to magic up water in space.
You can have solar power and wind power and wave power.
You have a comfortable 1G, and sea level air pressure, and a salty air that will put a healthy hue in your cheeks.
Topless sunbathing.
Can move around the oceans, and fish.

Benefits of being in space:

0g sex
wearing silver clothing

Well I can think of a few more arguments, but going to space 'to live there' is so dumb, living in the desert is easier and cheaper than living in space. Many poor people with camels already do it!

Recycling and filtering our pollution is easier than recycling and rebreathing space station air.

Terrorist attacks are worrying on a space station, which brings us to the question:

So why do people want to go to space and offer prizes for new space technology?

Not for living! not for Star Trek/Wars/n!

But for commercial flights, transports, satellites, RIAA, Micheal Jackson and Military purposes.

So there, I hope we are all done pandering to the space race, as we will be living int he oceans before we live on mars.

Actually, we will all be dead from all the new space weapons.

Re:So entirely stupid reasons

[octal666]

Have you thought of the geek factor of living in space? It's true, living under water has also a great geek factor, but space is the most.

Desert has a pretty low geek factor, at least if it's not Arrakis.

Re:So entirely stupid reasons

[magefile]

0g sex

Not for you, nerd-boy. (Yeah, yeah, pot/kettle/black). Besides, we already have the vomit comet for that.

Re:So entirely stupid reasons

[golgotha007]

Benefits of being in space:

when that one astroid that slams into Earth destroying all surface life happens, the human race will live on.

Re:So entirely stupid reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey, baby, want to have sex for 2 minutes in the vomit comet?". Yeap, sounds like a great pick up phrase.

Re:So entirely stupid reasons

[tod_miller]

So now I know why Buzz Aldrin was grinning, it was all that viagra he was poppin' before he went on there, his pupils were dilated and everything...

I appreciate the nerd-boy comment, I really do!

The best thing about 0g sex, is there are no arguments about who is on top.

And you can pretend to be superman and louise lane... and erm... other things... :-)

Re:So entirely stupid reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

You can have solar power and wind power and wave power.

I want desert power.

Re:So entirely stupid reasons

[tod_miller]

Until they realise that cape canaveral is closed for the indeterminabke future and the corn growing regions of the US are experiencing a bad winter caused by high altitude dust particles reflecting sunlight.

Oh and suddenly although sattelites work, there are no more TV ground stations beaming us up our daily sitcoms.

We can still play counterstrike on our station lans until we starve though (food will spoil/be eaten before our reserves of water from the cooling and heating and fuel systems get depleted.)

I suppose a self contained ecosystem *is* plausible...

But then you could make on of those to survive an asteroid *and* still have wind / wave power and 1g of gravity and less systems to maintain.

Plus you don't have to worry about a landing strip when the dust settles and you want to go back.

Re:So entirely stupid reasons

[IvanD]

I guess.. is because cellphones will work better in space than in water. However, If I have enough money to build that spaceship, why would I want $50 million more?

Merely, profit reasons :(

Will my karma be bad forever??

Re:So entirely stupid reasons

[amorsen]

Soyuz doesn't worry too much about a landing strip.

Re:So entirely stupid reasons

[RedWizzard]

There is one big plus to establishing a colony off-world: if anything happens to Earth, the colony might still survive.

What does it say about: rights to technology

[tod_miller]

Does the processes and technology used have to be patented and available to license?

Or is this a thinly veiled attempt for some P2P R&D? Get everyone to think about best ways to reduce costs of building space bound military hardware, then censor the shit out of them and refine it and kill people.

Can we see open technology for space travel? At least give other countries a chance to catch up with US super star war bombs and lasers and death stars.

(OH no I forgot, that is against the rules)

Re:What does it say about: rights to technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Well since you like to read between the lines to fit your beliefs
i will also:

You are a paranoid asshole.

Re:What does it say about: rights to technology

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF does any of this have to do with the US military? It's a private enterprise trying to spur R&D so it may profit from space tourism.

At least give other countries a chance to catch up with US super star war bombs and lasers and death stars. (OH no I forgot, that is against the rules)

You moron. If France or Germany or India want to fly into space, fine. More power to them. If some theocratic totalitarian regime like Iran tries to do it, you're god damn right we won't allow it.

Got a problem with that? Catch a bus to Fallujah and put up a fight against the evil American imperialist storm troopers.

Not about the Money

[millahtime]

This contect is not about the money. It's about innovation. If there is no goal, prize or reason at the end then innovation in that way does not happen. This will give a chance to make some costs back and develop ways of doing things better. This is to try to drive innovation in that area. An area where real innovation just has not happened.

That's it!

[AtariAmarok]

That sounds like it. I might be mixing together space episodes and CCCP episodes, but I remember the details such as the Merv Griffin show being hosted in a space capsule. Guests included HAL-9000 and George Plimpton. Plimpton was ridiculing George Lucas' Atari joysticks.

Also, there was the "Russian minicam" used in CCCP-1. Looked like a full-sized fridge a bazooka mounted on it.

Re:That's it!

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like the Merv Griffin segment (scroll down to segment 4)... but it doesn't seem to have Dr. Tongue in it. Also, being Season 4, it isn't available yet.

Should have been...

[PetoskeyGuy]

from the I-don't-have-enough-friends-to-win-the-prize department

I think you are missing something.

[Gorphrim]

I think his point is that the way it is worded, the winner must achieve that velocity, but they don't actually have to complete two orbits around the Earth. It's the velocity that is required, not the orbiting. So maybe they could orbit just once, then land, because they did achieve the required velocity.

Kinda a good idea

[Mulletproof]

Cost effective Wind Power (Kilowatts/Construction costs) would mean the end of middle east conflict, global warming, rural poverty in developing countries, lung disease in Beiging.

Wait wait wait... First, I suspect bankrupting the middle east with cheap, efficient energy would tend to distabilize the region even more since oil is nearly their only income. Which segways nicely into the next bit, rural poverty in developing countries. Cheap power won't affect the change in lifestyle you're attributing to it. it may alliviate one financial concern, but most under developed countries have much bigger problems than ones cheap power will fix. And that's not even getting into the global warming bit...

It's still a good idea, just not for the reasons you list.

No, IDN RTFA!

[Thud457]

Would these rules allow for something like a solar powered Voyager to win?!!! I would expect that the backers would be familiar with Rutan's work. We've already see plans for various forms of continually airbor UAVs for survelliance and communications relay.

Re:No, IDN RTFA!

[Anonymous Coward]

11,000' 400km!

You're right

[AmericanInKiev]

Space Travel is not as dangerous - many more people have died scuba diving. So I guess maybe space travel is a way for whimps to experience scuba diving.

AIK

Re:You're right

[Rei]

So, do around one in every 25 scuba divers die from their hobby eventually?

Re:You're right

[Chembryl]

Space Travel is not as dangerous - many more people have died scuba diving. So I guess maybe space travel is a way for whimps to experience scuba diving.

Bah, both are for woosies. REAL men strap scuba gear AND Satrurn IVs to their arses!

Re:You're right

[AmericanInKiev]

c'mon - i was funnin the numbers - like Geo Bush actually got more votes than anyone in history.

its a truism which is patently untrue.

George bush squeeked out the narrowest margin possible in a two way race - and suddendly he's the most wildly successful politician in the history of life.

Clinton actually outranked his opponents by a much wider margin than bush

aik

Re:You're right

[b-baggins]

The narrowest margin possible in a two-way race is one vote. Four million is slightly more than one, even using Louis Farakhan's Million Man Math.

Of course, a disconnect from reality is a liberal litmus test, so your rant is not at all surprising.

Re:You're right

[Tackhead]

> Bah, both are for woosies. REAL men strap scuba gear AND Satrurn IVs to their arses!

Stop. Giving. The. Goatse. Guy. Ideas.

That is all.

Re:You're right

[fucksl4shd0t]

Bah, both are for woosies. REAL men strap scuba gear AND Satrurn IVs to their arses!

I can't believe this is on-topic.

Re:You're right

[Anonymous Coward]

... says the person whose candidate was elected by voters who polls show think that stockpiles of WMDs were found in Iraq, that Iraqis were among the 9/11 hijackers, etc, etc.

Bush one by 3 percent. I don't care how you slice it, 3 percent is *NOT* a mandate.

Re:You're right

[tylernt]

Uh... so presumably, there have been exactly as many astronauts as scuba divers, so your argument is valid?

Unfortunate Restriction

[under_score]

Must reside and be based in the United States.

Re:Unfortunate Restriction

[ocelotbob]

Well, if you want to play, nothing's stopping you from moving.

Govt. should also co-operate.

[Jimmy The Tulip]

I think govt. setups should also actively help in this project. I am not sure how much govt. help can be taken by law. but without any active support things may not give good results soon.
forget the example of recent x-prize, think about darpa's unmanned vehicle challenge. DARPA had to extend the date and still its going. That means not every challenge is a success.
In the case of Space missions, nasa's *secret* techs and their experiences from failure should be provided by the Govt.
Atleast we can think about assuring the least human loss with that help.

Better Idea

[Ancil]

I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!

Wile E.Coyote once tried something similar.. For the first launch, I'd suggest five enemies instead.

It is in *America* after all...

[Laebshade]

You foreigners are so picky. We called the baseball championship games "World Series" and you griped because it doesn't include the entire world, only North America. Now you gripe because a prize to encourage space flight was set up for Americans by Americans, and they happened to use "America" in the name of the prize. Is it wrong for America just to care just about itself?

Re:It is in *America* after all...

[whats_a_zip]

"Is it wrong for America just to care just about itself?" Nope. If America doesn't care about America, no one else will. It's human nature to want to see the mighty fall. Nationalism isn't a bad thing. And besides, is anyone saying there is nothing Euro-centric? That all things should be global?

Re:It is in *America* after all...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why we're having unprotected high risk sex. To out breed the rest of the world. Now let's just hope STDs don't do us in.

Besides, they'll have no choice but to care about us. We have all the good television and consume anything put in front of us.

friends

[Fr05t]

Ok since noone has said it:

Who wouldn't be able to find 4 friends when you have a gremlin and a huge rubber band!

Re:friends

[hplasm]

I'm in a band- and we have a huge rubber gremlin.

Re:friends

[hobbesx]

Anyone with a Gremlin already has a huge rubber band.

Just check under the hood!

::Ba-DUM!::

How to decelerate from orbital velocity...

[Anonymous Coward]

...without burning or breaking up on the way back down is certainly gonna be the big challenge. Too bad that physics reality isn't like a Roadrunner / Wile E. Coyote cartoon where you could come to a screeching halt at 400km altitude and pause for a couple seconds before plummeting straight downward back to the Earth. If that were possible, then a version of Rutan's "carefree re-entry" folding tail/wings made with beefier hardware would work.

Earth's Space Prize

[zentinal]

Others have already expressed dismay at the USA-onlyness of the prize. The solution, of course, would be for a Non-USA billionaire or corporation or consortium thereof to offer a similar, but better, prize. Keep most of the rules the same, except that the corporation couldn't be American, and development & launch would have to take place outside of the United States. I agree that $50 million seems too low. How about €100 million to €150 million?

pretty good, but...

[VanillaCoke420]

...why is it open only for Americans?

Re:pretty good, but...

[burns210]

NASA doesn't want to outsource innovation? Call it good ol' fashioned greed.

Re:pretty good, but...

[p3d0]

Because it's their money and they can do what they want. They can offer the prize only to freemasons if they want.

Re:pretty good, but...

[VanillaCoke420]

That's just what makes it possible to limit it - not why they did it.

Re:pretty good, but...

[p3d0]

Oh I see what you mean. My guess would be that they are an American company that doesn't want the hassle of dealing with foreign companies (whatever hassle that might be).

Rutan is leading contender to win, though.

[MtViewGuy]

I think people forget that Burt Rutan's company is probably the leading candidate to win this US$50,000,000 prize.

Scaled Composites did a lot of development work for both the McDonnell-Douglas Delta Clipper and Lockheed Martin Venture Star projects. This means Scaled Composites already has enough technical knowledge to start work on a space vehicle to win this prize as soon as they get enough funding to pull it off (Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures could easily part with the US$200,000,000 estimated development cost; Allen's group paid US$30,000,000 to develop the X-Prize winner).

Re:Rutan is leading contender to win, though.

[DerekLyons]

I think people forget that Burt Rutan's company is probably the leading candidate to win this US$50,000,000 prize.

He's only the leading candidate to the johhny-come-lately fanboys. Anyone who has actually thought about the issue considers him a dark horse at best, and don't see *any* leading contenders.

Scaled Composites did a lot of development work for both the McDonnell-Douglas Delta Clipper and Lockheed Martin Venture Star projects. This means Scaled Composites already has enough technical knowledge to start work on a space vehicle to win this prize as soon as they get enough funding to pull it off

Scaled did a lot of development work on fuel tanks and structures. There's a heck of a lot more to a spacecraft than those two items, and Rutan has minimal, if any, experience with them. Nor is their any evidence he has been hiring folks that are experienced with them.

No way !

[Thomas Miconi]

... Schröder, Chirac, Blair, Sharon and Berlusconi on the second trip?

Schroder will attract hordes of angry east German protester who will block the launch, Blair will give the plans of the ship to the US government with offers of complimentary sexual gratification to any senior member of the administration, Sharon won't get in the ship because it will probably fly over a moslem country at some point, Chirac will ask for United Nations meetings, counter-meeting, commissions and detailed reports on the size and orientation of every single joint in the fuselage, and Berlusconi will just run away with the prize !

Thomas-

5 people?

[NotQuiteReal]

Why five people? That seems like a lot for an experimental vehicle. Or can it be the weight equivalent?

Of course that begs the question of why have any people on there at all - one could argue safe cheap space access without humans is a useful goal too.

Also - a cheap reliable unmanned vehicle that could carry human-rated "cargo" containers would be fine too, right?

Re:5 people?

[coachvince]

5 might seem like the minimum to start a colony "somewhere"; if we can get 5 up and out, then do it again shortly, we're on our way to moving people off-planet in a wholesale manner. I don't mean Species Migration, I just mean that if we can move 5 and 5 again quickly, we can probably extend that to moving 50, and 50 again. Too expensive? Find out how much does it cost to keep the South Pole bases running, and think about the interest people would have in this.

A+ Certified & Potty-Trained; equally proud of both

Not Bellyaching

[AmericanInKiev]

I've got more mouths than money I'm afraid.

But I have been scetching scaleable wind generators for a year or so now - so this isn't just "bitching on Slashdot"

I'm genuinely interested in what the /. collective mind thinks of Wind Power.

My designs are based on stretched tyvek surfaces and blend the physics of kites, sailboats, and bird wings.

In theory one can build a huge self-rising structure of undulating airfoils and collect power from the oscillations. on a large scale - an axel bound design is limiting.

So i'm angling to be a contestant here.

But in truth - i'm not the genius - Burt Ruttan is, and if he was motivated by a challenge - i think he - and the gaggle of people he competes with, would be able to make an important step forward in Wind.

Wind is the answer I believe - it's been used before, is still used by most cultures for boats, and is viable in ways that solar for example is not.

AIK

Re:Not Bellyaching

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm genuinely interested in what the /. collective mind thinks ... But in truth - i'm not the genius... Indeed. Best of luck!

...and duct tape

[SCSI-Wan]

now if I only had 4 friends

If I were you I'd be looking for 5 friends and some duct tape. You know, just to be safe...

Re:Hah! - timeframe

[Somegeek]

5 years seems a little long?

I bet its not even close to enough time. I think that it took Rutan over 4 years to achieve what he did, and a) I don't believe that much of that technology is transferable to this project, b), this is going to be orders of magnitude more difficult, and c) he spent twice what he earned from the prize to get there.

This is more ambitious than what China's manned space program has just achieved, and it took them 11 years and over 2 billion dollars.

This will take:
I Large engineering team
II Very Deep Pockets to fund the research, construction and testing.

A half billion dollar prize and ten years might get some action, 50 million and 5 years is going to get a lot of pretty drawings and some interesting ideas, which might actually be their goal.

Re:Better Idea [OT]

[interiot]

This piece discusses some of the reasons for the decrease in influence of the Middle East starting in the 18th century, one of them being the shift of world trade from the Mediterranean Sea out to the oceans, but also the unwillingness to be involved in the Industrial Revolution, and several other internal issues.

What's next

[Anonymous Coward]

What's next?
$100 million to take 10 people to the moon by 2015? You'll have to do it again 6 months later, and if you make it back that time, you can even collect the prize.

Re:What's next

[Quill_28]

Maybe take 10 people up and charge them $100,000 a piece.

I'll be your friend

[cocotoni]

I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!

I'll be your friend if we agree that you are that 20% of the crew that are expandable.

Yes, but it is his money.

[gzunk]

It's not as if putting that clause in is going to cause a significant drop in contestants.

wonder what the Insurance carrier is charging

[way2trivial]

the first prize, if memory serves, was paid off by an insurance policy for a "hole in one policy" just like pepsi's billion dollar prize was insured...

wonder if they had to put up a much larger chunk percentagewise, of the premium against potential payout....

Orbital Gremlins

[jshark]

The aerodynamics of a Gremlin are such that the giant rubber band will give insufficient lift to attain orbital velocity. You'll be better off with a good strong plank and one of those weights from Acme that read 16 TONS on the side.

The only drawback is that the sudden acceleration may cause your passengers to look like pancakes of mercury on the floormats, assuming they don't just flow through the rust holes in the floorboards.

Re:Orbital Gremlins

[paco3791]

Depends, are they African or European Gremlins?

The formula is:

[ICECommander]

The formula for these space prizes seems to be very predictable:

1. Build private spaceship funded by yourself and your startup.
2. Bring X people up Y km, do it again in Z days.
3. Profit.

Re:The formula is:

[Anonymous Coward]

Add rule #4, then it would be junkyard wars.

4. Build it with the scrap material in the junkyard within 3 day...

Re:The formula is:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because the engineering side is predictable too:

1. Build bomb.
2. Strap someone to one end.
3. Light the other end.

Re:The formula is:

[JCOTTON]

3. profit

I haven't seen where the Space Ship 1 company has made much profit yet. So profit doesn't follow 1-2-3.

expandable

[gzunk]

I'll be your friend if we agree that you are that 20% of the crew that are expandable

That'll be the crew on the McDonalds rations.

I emailed Hemos about it

[wowbagger]

I emailed Hemos about Flash ads showing up. According to him, they are only supposed to show up to IE. However, it would seem that logic is broken. Hemos said it needed to be fixed - presumably they are working on it.

THEN I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL!!

[Anonymous Coward]

GRRRAAAUUOOOGGHHHH!!!

Translated: Someone get this crazy fucker off my back!

That's odd

[SuperKendall]

Funny, I was thinking that if you had a Gremlin chances are you were unlikely to have even three friends, much less four.

Fierce Competition

[Maniacal]

Someone better check these ships for rockets and/or lasers. For $50 million these guys are going to be trying to take eachother out should they pass in orbit.

Re:Fierce Competition

[StikyPad]

Someone better check these ships for rockets and/or lasers

Right, because the last place you'd want to see a rocket is on a space err.. Rockets and space don't mi.. hmm.

They must be the same 5 people?

[Zangief]

Because if it is not necesary, the first people can die of hunger orbiting the earth, and then you send another team and win.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe no one commented on your incredibly successful FP.

Here is a novel idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a prize for doing something useful, like putting a satellite into orbit?

I think this space tourism stuff is great; but there is a huge difference between what NASA does with the shuttle and sending up a lightweight bubble containing some people.

When I see the XPrize style vehicles going up and orbiting the earth for a few days, I'll get more impressed. NASA's goal isn't to thrill some people with a 20 minute space flight.

You want to ride too?

[scuba964]

Don't you mean you want 5 friends? You stay on earth and collect the 50M.

His space hotel

[delcielo]

He's wanting somebody to demonstrate a technology that will make his space habitats commercially successful.

He's essentially looking for somebody to produce the shuttle that will take people to his orbital hotels.

Sounds like a great idea to me.

RTFA, You Retard

[Anonymous Coward]

Only American companies are eligible, because an American company is financing 100% of the prize money, and that American company specifically wants to spur the American private sector.

Quit snivelling. Don't like Americans investing in American ventures? Then make your own prize, and beat us to orbit.

Hmm

[cascino]

We're all overlooking one key fact:
It must also demonstrate the ability to dock with Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable space habitat and be able to stay docked in orbit for up to six months.
This prize is not an act of goodwill - it is subcontracted commercial R&D! Presumably this "Bigelow Aerospace" (doesn't that sound like something out of the Jetsons?) company is in need of a launch vehicle, and finds it cheaper to launch a "contest" than to develop the vehicle themselves. Remember, Rutan & Co. spent well more than $10 million developing SS1... it's likely Bigelow will actually save money if the contest is completed successfully...

A lot harder than it looks

[Latent Heat]

I think people will find 0-G sex to be either greatly overrated or at least a lot more difficult than you would think.

Think of the early space walkers and how even the most simple tasks caused them to flail about and sweat buckets. You know, Newton's Laws, action and reaction, and how partners having sex will probably have to be tied down with Velcro or something similar.

As far as solo sex, no one is admitting to that one either and whether there are any particular problem areas. Michael Collins said that the docs had recommended this activity for long-duration space station missions, you know, so a guy doesn't get prostate problems in space (one of the Apollo 13 guys got really, really sick with a UTI because he was holding it because there was some miscommunication whether they had enough electric power to take a leak), but the astronauts were indignant that the docs would even talk about such a thing.

On the other hand, these guys on 90 day cruises inside of missile submarines, don't tell me that no one has had solo sex, although the Navy doesn't check to see if you are imagining it with a chick or a dude.

Re:A lot harder than it looks

[Tackhead]

> Think of the early space walkers and how even the most simple tasks caused them to flail about and sweat buckets. You know, Newton's Laws, action and reaction, and how partners having sex will probably have to be tied down with Velcro or something similar.

Wait a minute, I thought you were talking about bad things.

Technical question on the rules (loophole??)

[CSG_SurferDude]

As far as I can tell, the rules say "5 people", but the rules do not say anything about have said people "Return alive from orbit", nor anything at all about them "being alive at launch time".

So, in theory (if not in spirit) you could win by shipping up 5 dead people.

MeThinks this is what happens when you write rules without a lawyer present.

Heinlein Ford Taurus

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a gremlin

I'd rather have a Ford Taurus with a fourth dimension shifter in the console and an A.I. radio named "DiDi."

Twice in 60 days with that baby. Easy money.

Do the passengers have to be alive?

[earthforce_1]

I imagine it would be a lot cheaper to launch corpses into orbit. Or for that matter, a small containing their cremated remains. Eliminates the need for pressurized cabins, life support, as well as heat shields on the way down. It doesn't matter if they get slightly toasted on the way down. Sort of a space-age viking funeral.

Re:Do the passengers have to be alive?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Or for that matter, a small containing their cremated remains."

You keep cremated remains in your smalls? Eww...

Internationalism

[Yartrebo]

What irks me most is that it's restricted to businesses of a single country, and government aid is prohibited. If the goal is to promote the progress of science, sectarianism is not the way to go.

Odds are a US corporation would still wind up winning, but at least make it fair.

Re:Internationalism

[Anonymous Coward]

"What irks me most is that it's restricted to businesses of a single country"

So feel free to finance your own goddamn prize.

Re:Internationalism

[raider_red]

I agree that it should be open to corporations or individuals in other countries, but I don't believe that we should allow government funding. The point of this is to allow free enterprise to develop cost-effective solutions for spaceflight without getting bogged down in a government bureaucracy.

This is a setup for SpaceX

[dschmelzer]

This prize appears custom-tailored for a win on a Falcon V, a new rocket aiming for first flight in 2005 carrying a Bigelow Aerospace test module. The Falcon V is manufactured by SpaceX, Elon Musk's new rocket firm. Assuming that the Falcon V is a successful rocket, all of the prize rules are within the design capabilities of the Falcon V.

This appears to be part of Bigelow's demonstration to Musk that he will have a sufficient private market should Musk invest in designing a capsule plus ground infrastructure. Look at it as $50 million cash plus hundreds of millions in solid follow-on business. The prize reduces the risk of Musk's business case, which is important since the technical challenges of a capsule are certainly non-trivial.

Re:This is a setup for SpaceX

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't look to me like a Falcon is only 20% consumables. Yes, it's reuseable, but isn't part of the prize rules say it needs to have only 20% consumables?

Re:This is a setup for SpaceX

[dschmelzer]

You are correct that the current version of the Falcon V only has a reusable first stage and not a reusable second stage. However, Musk has stated that he will work on second stage (i.e., the capsule) reusability in order to enable manned flights. This fulfills the rule set forth by Bigelow.

Re:Hah! - timeframe

[ppanon]

A half billion dollar prize and ten years might get some action, 50 million and 5 years is going to get a lot of pretty drawings and some interesting ideas, which might actually be their goal.

Nope. what you've just described will get you more of what's been done now. And it doesn't work in providing access to space for commercial exploitation beyond putting up a few satellites. They want more than an order of magnitude in cost and turnaround

What the America's Space prize attempts to do is stimulate different ways of achieving Earth orbit. If it's possible and someone thinks of it, then they'll get funding based on the prize. If it's not, then nobody will win the prize and they'll increase it in 2010 until somebody does win it.

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Christ, WTF is wrong with you moderators? This isn't an insightful question; it's an ignorant knee-jerk bash-the-American response.

The contestant must have its principal place of business in the United States of America.

Isn't this is very restrictive and unfair?

No, you illiterate (or lazy) fool.

Some American guy wants to get tourists up to a LEO inflatable space hotel his American company is going to build. He wants to deal with an American company - the article suggests that there are practical logistic reasons involved. It's just a guy investing domestically. There is nothing evil, arrogant, or ethnocentric about it.

It's his $50 million. It's a business venture, and if he doesn't want to deal with foreign crybabies like you, more power to him.

Don't like it? Make your own prize, then make your own rules.

Sub-contracted R&D

[Teancum]

While this may seem like a rip-off, everything is much more open than a typical commercial R&D subcontract. Those are usually done like NASA has done things, or worse, especially for the sub-contractor.

At least in this situation everything is going to be out in the open, you don't have to worry about missing deadlines, because the deadlines are something that you set personally. It may be influenced by competition, but even then it is quite straight forward, and if you miss the prize because somebody else beat you to that... that is simply the rules of the game. Normally if this were an R&D subcontract like you were implying, there would be the primary contractor or customer who would be breathing down your neck asking for status reports every couple of days, if not daily or hourly (depending on how anal the customer is and mission critical the project is).

On the other hand, I agree that this is a very cost-effective solution in terms of getting needed components on a very visible project. It would be impressive if GM or Ford did something similar in terms of building a hydrogen-fueled engine or even a major utility company in regards to highly efficient power generation. Set the specific requirements and guarentee a certain minimum buy of the power generated from such a facility, such as a wind farm, geothermal vents, or even a nuclear power plant with an established maximum of nuclear waste generation. There is some real engineering that could be accomplished using this model that would be incredibly effective.

This could even be done for software components that implement a certain technology. Just for instance, if you set up a contest to pay for the first implementation of a new audio or video codec that also has features X,Y,Z (like a plug-in to winamp, and LGPL libraries, etc).

The main requirement here to do such a contest is that 1) the discussion of the project can be done publicly and 2) the resulting product while complimentary to your product line, does not directly compete with what you do for your main line business or with the industry (when a large number of corporate sponsors are involved).

In this case with Bigelow Aerospace, they really need to have these spacecrafts available, but don't really intend to build and fly them.

Not every engineering challenge can be solved this way, but there are a number than can be done. This is also why Thiokol won't be a sponsor (although perhaps a competitor?), because this does directly compete with what they do for a business.

Re:Sub-contracted R&D

[patches]

This could even be done for software components that implement a certain technology. Just for instance, if you set up a contest to pay for the first implementation of a new audio or video codec that also has features X,Y,Z (like a plug-in to winamp, and LGPL libraries, etc).

That is essentially what topcoder.com does. They take orders from their customers for software components and software applications, then hold two seperate contests, one for the design work, and one for the coding.

Mon-ster MON-STER hang-er!

[Thud457]

So is Burt Rutan the aerospace equivalent of Jessie James or Paul Teutul ?

Re:Mon-ster MON-STER hang-er!

[sbszine]

So is Burt Rutan the aerospace equivalent of Jessie James or Paul Teutul ?

Only if he fits his spacecraft with a hydraulic claw that grabs unwanted satellites and hurls them into an onboard trash compactor. And gets some tattoos and girly calendars...

An almost trivial increase in thrust...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The gist of it is that the winner needs to get a crew of five people up 400km, complete two orbits of the Earth, and then do it again within 60 days"

No need to return the ship or crew back to Earth, then? That makes the challenge a whole lot easier, doesn't it?

Now... how to pick the 10... that's the real challenge.

Interesting

[uberdave]

they're willing to kill over their different ideas....

We need to nuke them

Seems like that willingness isn't restricted to the Middle East.

Re:Interesting

[syukton]

I said that is the only way to bring peace to the region, not that we should. I said "need" because I believe that it's the only way (thus a necessity) to achieve the goal of peace in the middle east. I have no desire to kill anybody over my ideas. Ignore, yes; kill, no. If we could give the Middle East the finger ("We don't need your stinkin' oil!") without any reprecussions I'd be all for it, but that is an unrealistic idea.

fair?

[Anonymous Coward]

Life isn't fair. Deal with it.

Lets ask HAL!

[camusflage]

Do the crew members have to be alive, or can you use corpses with a computer for guidance?

"I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."

Better idea...

[Rei]

Instead of trying to build a bigger space ship, why don't we just work on engineering smaller people?

It's sort of like the solution of passing a camel through the eye of a needle by breeding smaller camels and making bigger needles. :)

Not quite

[WindBourne]

Look, the real problem is not generation by wind or solar. Wind is currently feasable and solar really is on the cusp( More so as the price of oil goes up). The problem is the intermittant nature of alternative power.

Instead, research should go into holding energy esp. electrical.

W. is pushing Hydrogen Fuel Cells, but the truth is, that it will be no less than 30 years before we can make the jump. More importantly, all of the pipes (from oil and gas) that ppl want to use are not suitable for h2. They will leak it. Finally, storage is a real issue.

Instead, other alternative approachs to energy storage should be done. Particulary, ones that can be made to service smaller areas, say a town to a city.

The Bigelow Reality Show

[Anonymous Coward]

wonder what the rose ceremony will be like

Where all da white women at?

[gelfling]

The America's Pimp Prize was announced today. To win the spaceship

Must be made out of a 84 Cutlass or equally shitty car
Must have new paint; extra points for 70's themed
Rims - less than 20s need not apply
Flat screen TVs in the sun visors
Must be able to slow ride past the ISS
Must have a fountain, espresso machine, drum machine, kareoke machine or other equally useless crap installed to maximize blingness
Must be underpowered but fart pipes should more than make up for it

World Trade Center on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

The New York Times is reporting that the Mars Rovers, being controlled from downtown Manhattan, are partially built with debris from the World Trade Center.

So, build it elsewhere then carry it to USA

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignoring all the jingoism you've already seen answering you, I really doubt anyone can possibly scream 'foul' if you create a working prototype in any foreign country, then pack up and carry the results over to the USA where you hand things over to a sister/shell corp that enters and wins the prize.

I say I really doubt it, because there'd be no difference between that and buying foreign parts, hiring the best foreign engineers, etc.

And if a USian firm (in name only) run by a handful of israeli/indian/french/chinese/aussie geniuses wins, we'll all smile just as approvingly. Science and progress matter to us a bit more than who wins.

Well, most of us will. After last week's elections my expectations of Americans re: bigotry (arabs, gays, religiosity, allies, etc) have taken a bit of a hit. Reading these responses just reinforced that. For now, I'm deluding myself that they're a minority (12-15%, based on a *lot* of reading); they just happened to swing the tide in a close election.

--- Posted AC because a few such nimrods influence my paycheck. ---

'America's Space Prize'

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called 'America's Space Prize'? So much for forward thinking...

Settle down

[p3d0]

This is not a hidden agenda. It's the explicit goal of a company that wants to (gasp!) make a profit.

5 friends

[Khashishi]

I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!

You mean 5 friends, don't you? Or should I say 5 ex-friends?

Zephram Cochrane's on the way...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, how long before the W-Prize:

First FTL / Warp Drive engine wins $100 million!

Come on guys, just try working smarter, not harder...

Contestants must be Americans?!

[d_jedi]

Gee.. good idea! Exclude 90%+ of the world from even attempting to win this prize. Yeah, that'll make it more likely that this will succeed.

STFU Frenchie

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up Frenchie. The USA and only the USA has ever done anything worthwhile in space, so there is no reason to even bother accepting entries from England, CanaDUH, China or any of you other pissant countries. I agree with these guys in that all you dumbasses in the rest of the world can stick it where the sun don't shine.

Turn off Java.

[sulli]

Who ever uses Java in the browser for anything anyway? (Except slowing the browser to a crawl, that is.)

Europeans need not apply...

[Anonymous Coward]

...nor Russians, Chinese, Indians, Aussies, Canadians, Kiwis, South Americans, Africans, and anyone I've left out. Looks like this competition is for US residents only.

Anyone like to rationalize that for me? How precisely does science or industry gain by their refusing to consider the potential achievements of 95% of the world's population?

The only explanation I can think of is that they don't trust foreigners not to be getting secret government funding. Which would be reasonable enough. I just wish they'd be up-front and say so...

its already here, FREEDOM SHIP

[cheekyboy]

Search for freedom ship, its a massive giant ship with 100k people, basically a little island, but made of metal with a little airport.

Im not sure if its already being made... could be... but it would damn survive any 'sea level rises' and can move about to give you year round summer, no need to 'travel' since you are mobile by default. Doing timezone changes on your PC would be a pain, though unless you adjusted based on GPS/clock.

Awesome idea.... though it is dependant on petrol and food though they can grow some small crops like herbs/veges in glasshouses/hyrdo.

Re:its already here, FREEDOM SHIP

[tod_miller]

There is a guy, a personal hero of mine, who build a floating island with sustainable habitat (ok, it grows, that is enough) out of plastic pepsi, coke and water bottles.

At the mo' he is in an idillic little water stretch that gets the odd storm/hurricane but he is contemplating making it bigger to float it out into a sea... stupid if you ask me, but this little islet is full of banana plants and windings pathways and his little hut.

I wonder if he reads /.?

Ads?

[KlausBreuer]

They have an applet in their ads?
In fact, Slashdot has ads? Haven't seen them in a long time.

Mozzi + Adblock are your friends.

You did loose the Americas CUP!!!

[cheekyboy]

Duhh!!!

Forgot to cheat on the yacht dudes.

They could make 20% if placed in EU banks

[cheekyboy]

If they placed that $50m in an EU bank in EUROS accounts, then by them time the prize is claimed/failed, that $50m can earn back another $10m ontop easily after the US$ decreases against the EURO, better still, if they buy $50m in gold, when it goes up to 480-520, they can make back heaps too.

So give away $50m, get a tax break, and also make a $10m profit of it too.

Or just invest $40m in the EU bank, get the tax credit for $50m, and anything over 50 is more profit.

Where can I bet my money on failure?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's impossible. You need a heavy launch vehicle like Proton or Ariane to launch that many people into 400 km orbit. 50 millions is a price for a single expendable launcher of that class. Developing it costs billions...

All smooth in Konqueror 3.2.3 (Mandrake 10.1)

[leonbrooks]

Also FireFox 1.0pre, same distro. Maybe an MS-Windows issue?

Re:All smooth in Konqueror 3.2.3 (Mandrake 10.1)

[metlin]

Yup.

That's why I mentioned Windows in the original post. :-)

Windows has got a weird implementation of Java (surprise!) - so, embedded Java applets need to be verified locally to be safe, and are then run (Windows has some weird implementation of this). And firefox has a weird implementation of Java, which compounds the problem.

But funnily, it's only the /. ads that seem to freeze up FF - wonder why. Like you said, works fine on FF 1.0 pre on Fed & Mdk, which is what I use at home.

Any of Paul Allen, Richard Branson...

[leonbrooks]

...or that inflatable-space-hotel dude could drop a hungred megabucks into it no worries. Any two of them should be enough to fund Burt to orbit.

And almost certainly make a profit even without the prize. Scaled has already done so on SS1, Branson's essentially paid for it all with a licence deal and more ship orders so Rutan could if he wanted to give Allen his money back, keep the Ansari prize as profit and still have all the equipment he needs to build Branson's toys. I'm betting Allen wants to put more money in rather than take any out, and I don't know what Shatner's worth, but he'd give half his kingdom (a million? a few?) to even be on the roster - and how many more like him are out there?

I'd be surprised if Burt didn't already have at least concept plans for an orbiter hanging up somewhere long before SS1 flew. Presumably using something the size of a 707 to kick the payload at LEO.

Makes our little diesel van fly too...

[leonbrooks]

...when we get any defuelled from the local (Bullsbrook) AFB. Apparently it's the official alternate military fuel for diesel.

Why would Scaled want to loft 300t?

[leonbrooks]

Burt builds light. He knows a lot about how air works and would want to use that knowledge to advantage rather than just brute-forcing through it with a massive but skinny cylinder.

I'm betting he uses a WhiteKnight-like design about the size of a 707 to do the first 30km ("launcher"), then lofts something delta-plus-cunard-ish and recoverable (as a "booster" shell) weighing less (probably much less) than 30t from that for the first rocket burn (which I'm betting will be all or primarily solid fuel), and that the final stage ("orbiter") nestled inside that weighs only a few times as much as SS1.

100% of the dry weight of the launcher should be recoverable, and the booster can probably re-enter fairly easily, glide like a brick and then pop a handful of 'chutes for the final km or two for another 100% recoverable chunk. I'm betting that the launcher will weigh about 45t empty, the first rocket stage will weigh about 12t "dry fuelled" and the final stage about 8t "dry fuelled". Even if he loses the booster he still recovers 81% of the mass which leaves the ground.

I'm also betting that the launcher has to do a gentle "vomit comet" parabola at launch to both prevent too much flex and rebound when the booster leaves and to help separate it. I reckon it'd be helpful to detach the booster just before zero gee was obtained and to adjust the parabola to a slight negative gee beyond that to permit it to separate without mechanical aid, but I don't know how feasible that would be from an airflow and stability POV. It wouldn't surprise me to see Rutan use the booster and/or orbiter's shape both to help the launch platform fly and to help separation.

I'm thinking that using four double-sized versions of the same engine that SS1 sits on with a payload weighing six times as much would get the booster out to about 120km and travelling nicely (where SS1 basically just went up then flopped back), then using three SS1-sized engines to do the kick to orbit from there would easily buy you the next 300km (essentially no air resistance and already have significant speed).

You'd need another small engine to do a deorbit burn, and in principle that could also be solid but I'd rather do it with several small motors for redundancy, or better still a solid motor that could deorbit the orbiter by itself in a pinch, plus at least one more controllable liquid motor (and never mind the complexity that involves) which could also do the deorbit by itself in a pinch. That would give you considerable room to jockey and two chances to cut the rope if you wanted down. I'm also wondering if a really big (hundreds of m across), really thin and flimsy parachute or balloon could economically replace the last solid motor.

For a short while

[leonbrooks]

Then incurable instabilities creep into your biosphere because it's too simple and fragile, and then the wheels come off. You would want scores of big colonies (over 1 million people each) in widely divergent places (Mars, Venus, free orbit, asteroids) and several times enough industry kicking around to be free-standing.

Seeing that you're dealing with humans, remember that one or more dickheads will try to sieze control of the whole show if the Earth gets deep-sixed.

Bad news on that front

[leonbrooks]

The Vomit Comit was retired recently. Quite a few sites mentioned that about a week ago.

Colonies are a lot easier to "terminate"...

[leonbrooks]

...and in fact without good terrestrial support will self-terminate within a few years or at most decades anyway. I'm sure the military will include a few missiles marked "Moon Base" and the like in any doomsday scenario.

Rutan and orbit; SpaceX

[FleaPlus]

In the recent Discovery Channel documentary, "Black Sky: The Race for Space," Burt Rutan revealed one of his preliminary designs for an orbital craft. Basically, it looked like SpaceShipOne, except it had a huge rocket roughly twice it's length sticking out its rear. I'm guessing Rutan has some tricks up his sleeve to deal with the reentry issue.

However, I'm not sure if we'll see Rutan launching such an orbital craft in time for this prize. From a recent speech he gave:

I put out there that before I die I want to see affordable travel to the Moon, that's essentially where I'm going. What I mean by affordable is not what Houston talks about affordable; I'm talking about where a third of the people in this room can afford to go to the Moon when I finally kick off. That's my vision.

Now, when you do that, you can draw a schedule back to show this above low Earth orbit stuff, and this low orbit stuff, and this suborbital stuff. Tier One is suborbital manned spaceflight, Tier Two is low Earth orbit manned spaceflight, and Tier Three is what we do above low Earth orbit, and it does have to start very soon after we have affordable Earth orbit stuff. I drew a schedule for all of that about three and a half months ago, and I decided what had to happen at every point to get to that. As of the 27th of September, I'm already six months ahead three months into the schedule. I did not think that there would be a major investment by a major guy who can and will do it. Can anyone here think of a better guy that will actually go out and build a spaceline [than Richard Branson]? I couldn't.

Can anyone here think of a better guy that will actually go out and build a spaceline [than Richard Branson]? I couldn't.
I could move directly on to orbital ops from a research standpoint, but I decided that since I didn't seem to have a real close competitor to the X Prize, that maybe I ought to stay with suborbital and make damn sure that there's a successful, certified, safe system out there flying many passengers every day suborbitally before I lose interest in it and go on to orbital. And that's what I'm going to do. Is it going to be tough? Yeah, there's some tough things. Are the regulatory issues going to be tough? Yeah. But I'm not as scared of that program that is in front of me right now as I was scared of the SpaceShipOne program that was in front of me in 2001.

Personally, I'm guessing that to win this prize somebody will end up designing a capsule to launch on SpaceX's reusable Falcon V rocket, which, starting next year, will be launching 4200kg payloads (enough for a manned capsule) to orbit for $12 million.

Offtopic!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Overheard in the USA...
"Hey - this is about an American contest. Don't go mentioning other parts of the world! Hey - I'm gonna mod this guy down! Yeah! (*CLICK*) That'll teach 'em. Goddamn international non-American son of a bitch. Heh."

$50 million US in 2010

[sean.geek.nz]

Just as well the prize is only for americans.

Because with the current trends in the US dollar that'll be worth 20 euro-cents.

Simple...

[Mr. Dop]

Wingardium Leviosa