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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!
..until Rutan does this?
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.
Hell yea! Yet another step closer to comercial space flight, so I can get off this god forsaken rock.
"To face death, that's nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable."
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?
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.
Wow, no more than 20% expendable and attain a real orbit. I have a feeling this money is safe.
...must be Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove, Ashcroft, and Oreilly. Successful reentry is not required to receive your prize.
where's the excitement in that ?
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
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
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
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
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.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
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.
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
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.
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!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
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.
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
... Schröder, Chirac, Blair, Sharon and Berlusconi on the second trip?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
"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?!
Seems easy enough...now, only if I had 4 friends up at NASA...
"There are 10 types of people in this world--Those that understand binary, and those that do not..."
The contestant must have its principal place of business in the United States of America.
Isn't this is very restrictive and unfair?
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
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.
A blog like any other.
Is if India or China set up a corp in the US and win it.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
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
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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.
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
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?
" 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.
Do the crew members have to be alive, or can you use corpses with a computer for guidance?
Easier to find volunteers that way.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
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.
A blog like any other.
Anyone who can build one would already have a money-making machine in their hands. The incentive is already there.
No data, no cry
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
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"
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 ;)
> 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?
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Scuba diving really does compare to being strapped to x-hundred tonnes of liquified gas.... oh wait.
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
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!
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.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
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.
Moderation: +1 pwnage
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
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
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.
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
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)
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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.
Evolution or ID?
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.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
Also, there was the "Russian minicam" used in CCCP-1. Looked like a full-sized fridge a bazooka mounted on it.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
from the I-don't-have-enough-friends-to-win-the-prize department
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.
Queens of the Stone Age - they rule
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
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.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
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.
Noise.
... 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.
The earth sucks power out of the wind anyway - trees, mountains etc
AIK
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.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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
Same way the Palestinians do currently - with blood.
Obviously you've never been to Iceland.
stuff
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.
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.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Must reside and be based in the United States.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
Yeah, like it's really worse for them than the smog-clogging of our atmosphere.
Read jack phelps dot net
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
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
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
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.
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?
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!
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!
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.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
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?
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
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.
holland is in the middle east now?
-mkb
...why is it open only for Americans?
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).
Prize for an efficient Wind Power Station.
/. is easier and costs nothing. And you can feel that you did something for the enviroment at the same time...
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
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
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.
... 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-
Duh, no -- that was my point.
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?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
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.
550 of todays scientists disagree with you. And so do I.
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
"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.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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.
Toasted my links somehow:
250 Scientists
300 Scientists
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
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.
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?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I've got more mouths than money I'm afraid.
/. collective mind thinks of Wind Power.
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
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
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.)
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...
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?
Yuma, AZ...You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.
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.
"Now we're getting to Science -- I love this!" -- Dr. Steven Chu, Energy Secretary confirmation hearings.
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
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.
The Earth has been warm before, and it was good.
... flooding, extinction, etc.
Uh huh. Regardless of whether or not that's true, the hard part will be the transition period
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.
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.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
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.
www.bigassfans.com
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
[rant]
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).)
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-
[/rant]
In sum: I totally agree with you.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
I wish I had mod points. Nuclear power is the only way forward.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Maybe take 10 people up and charge them $100,000 a piece.
It's not as if putting that clause in is going to cause a significant drop in contestants.
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.
wonder if they had to put up a much larger chunk percentagewise, of the premium against potential payout....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
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.
If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.
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.
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.
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?
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.
www.eFax.com are spammers
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.
-twb
"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?
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.
Funny, I was thinking that if you had a Gremlin chances are you were unlikely to have even three friends, much less four.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
MG
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...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Newspapers in New England were calling 1816 the year without a summer. Damn Darkfriends...
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, / Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. ("Ulysses", Tennyson)
Don't you mean you want 5 friends? You stay on earth and collect the 50M.
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
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.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
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.
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...
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.
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.
Stop reading my sig you geek!
Fallacy of appeal to numbers.
100 years ago nearly all physicists agreed that light propagated through something called ether.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
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.
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
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.
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.
Because we all know that flooding and extinction don't occur at all today in our perfect, utopian climate.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
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.
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.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
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.
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.
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.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
This is true, but remember that two of the more psychotic religions still have holy lands in the same city...
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.
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?
Like what I said? You might like my music
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.
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. :)
Like what I said? You might like my music
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.
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.
With blood and words, same as now.
:/
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
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.
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.
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.
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?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
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.
So is Burt Rutan the aerospace equivalent of Jessie James or Paul Teutul ?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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.
"Now we're getting to Science -- I love this!" -- Dr. Steven Chu, Energy Secretary confirmation hearings.
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.
!hoD
I truely hope history remembers him as the worst president the U.S. has ever known.
^^vv<><>BA
What reactor design are you referring to that is worthless as far as proliferation goes? A non-plutonium-based RTG? :)
"Now we're getting to Science -- I love this!" -- Dr. Steven Chu, Energy Secretary confirmation hearings.
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.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
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."
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
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.
"Now we're getting to Science -- I love this!" -- Dr. Steven Chu, Energy Secretary confirmation hearings.
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.
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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
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?
!hoD
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. :)
Like what I said? You might like my music
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.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
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).
"Now we're getting to Science -- I love this!" -- Dr. Steven Chu, Energy Secretary confirmation hearings.
This is not a hidden agenda. It's the explicit goal of a company that wants to (gasp!) make a profit.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
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.
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.
"Why can't everyone just be straight with me?"
"Because we live in a bendy world, dear."
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.
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.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
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.
Who ever uses Java in the browser for anything anyway? (Except slowing the browser to a crawl, that is.)
sulli
RTFJ.
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.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
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.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Duhh!!!
Forgot to cheat on the yacht dudes.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
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.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
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.
Nathan's blog
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.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Also FireFox 1.0pre, same distro. Maybe an MS-Windows issue?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...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.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...when we get any defuelled from the local (Bullsbrook) AFB. Apparently it's the official alternate military fuel for diesel.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
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.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
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.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The Vomit Comit was retired recently. Quite a few sites mentioned that about a week ago.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...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.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It's all about the continuum. The worse the climate, the worse the flooding and extinctions. Duh.
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.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
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...
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
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.
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.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
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.
Wingardium Leviosa