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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!
Read the rest of the article. The winner has to live and do business in the US.
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...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
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.
See what I've been reading.
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.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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.
The Earth has been warm before, and it was good.
From that link:
Those who don't know history will only repeat the bad parts of it.See what I've been reading.
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.
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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
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.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
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.
But then again, Rutan has done some amazing things.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
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 ...
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
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
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.
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.
All your Sybase are belong to us.
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.
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.
.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.
.126 kills / turbine year = 6804 dead birds a year
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
So, 180 turbines * 300 (needed to supply the whole US) and you get 54,000 turbines. Which converts to:
54,000 *
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
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.
m
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.ht
http://www.currykerlinger.com/studies.htm
"Now we're getting to Science -- I love this!" -- Dr. Steven Chu, Energy Secretary confirmation hearings.