NASA Supporting Nanotech Development

It doesn't come easy writes "In laboratories around the country, NASA is supporting the burgeoning science of nanotechnology. The basic idea is to learn to deal with matter at the atomic scale -- to be able to control individual atoms and molecules well enough to design molecule-size machines, advanced electronics and "smart" materials."

Comments

This is all good in theory...

[Vyyper]

But when will we actually see practical uses of this? 10 - 40 years like the article says is a pretty wide range to go by. Stuff like this makes me want the future here even faster!

Re:Nah Nah Nah

[Bastard of Subhumani]

No, it builds GOO. Grey goo, to be precise.

Should be more like this

[MichaelSmith]

NASA excells when they are funding or developing something totally new. They are not so good at mundane operational issues.

For example NASA let SRB O-ring problems creep up on them over many years. Same thing with TPS damage by foam. They don't deal with things which change slowly over time. They work on feel, rather than analysis.

But as developers of totally amazing stuff (Mercury, gemini, Apollo, Shuttle) they do very well.

My advice: if anything comes of this nanotech effort, NASA should sell the technology to private industry as fast as possible. Get out of the operational side and start developing the next big thing.

Back to the shuttle. Once the system was developed it could have continued to be funded and regulated by one or more Government departments, I just don't think NASA is the department to do the job.

Re:Should be more like this

[Anonymous Coward]

My advice: if anything comes of this nanotech effort, NASA should sell the technology to private industry as fast as possible. Get out of the operational side and start developing the next big thing.

Let's see: space travel, nanotech...

And you want NASA to move on from those things to find something harder to work on?

What's left on the impossible-projects-list? Developing some type of artificial intelligence which actually is intelligent?

Re:Should be more like this

[sillybilly]

Yeah, well shit happens. I think NASA is the perfect system to operate the Shuttle, instead of handing it over to some private industry dingbats. Maybe NASA should operate the nuke plants too, instead of handing them over to dumbass operators who fall asleep at the control terminals at 3 mile island, for they were hired into that position because they were profitable - i.e. cheap. Yeah, let's privatize everything, even the police, military and yo momma too.

Re:Should be more like this

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Let's see: space travel, nanotech... And you want NASA to move on from those things to find something harder to work on?

You seem to have totally missed the GP's post: NASA is good at *ground-breaking work* in space travel and nanotech. But as space exploration becomes space exploitation, the ESA and the Russians do a much better job.

Re:Should be more like this

[thc69]

My advice: if anything comes of this nanotech effort, NASA should sell the technology to private industry as fast as possible. Get out of the operational side and start developing the next big thing.

From TFA:

a way to use nanotubes to cool the microprocessors in personal computers, a major challenge as CPUs get more and more powerful. This cooling technology has been licensed to a Santa Clara, California, start-up called Nanoconduction, and Intel has even expressed interest, Meyyappan says.

On another note...also from TFA:

A chemical sensor they developed using nanotubes is scheduled to fly a demonstration mission into space aboard a Navy rocket next year. This tiny sensor can detect as little as a few parts per billion of specific chemicals--like toxic gases

If a gas has a few parts per billion concentration, wouldn't it make sense to NOT use the smallest possible thing you can make for detection, so that there's a better chance that those few parts of gas might contact the sensor? Or would the plan be to have a huge array of these nanosensors, effectively making one big, but more acute, sensor? IANA Gas Sensor Engineer...

Okay, yet another piece from TFA:

For example, one recent NIAC grant funded a feasibility study of nanoscale manufacturing--in other words, using vast numbers of microscopic molecular machines to produce any desired object by assembling it atom by atom!

I seem to remember an article a few months back about a machine that did something like this, of which there is already a working prototype.

Anyway, I too am glad to see NASA doing such research.

Re:Should be more like this

[dnixon112]

Umm, the ESA has yet to put a man in space by themselves, and their last mars lander failed miserably.

Re:Should be more like this

[Anonymous Coward]

considering the ESA is a lot younger than NASA and the russians they aren't doing too bad.

Re:Should be more like this

[Bogtha]

if anything comes of this nanotech effort, NASA should sell the technology to private industry as fast as possible.

Sell? The public funds NASA. NASA's research should go back to who paid for it instead of locking it up within one company. I thought the USA was supposed to be a capitalist society? Let anybody use this new technology and there will be competition instead of one company doing everything.

Re:Should be more like this

[5i]

For example NASA let SRB O-ring problems creep up on them over many years. Same thing with TPS damage by foam. ..obviously not paying enough attention to their TPS reports... (sorry, couldn't resist)

Re:Should be more like this

[mks180]

The existance of NASA (and NACA) is based on the idea that they are to examine high risk concepts and develop them to the point that they can be transfered to industry. Working for a few years now on the aeronautics side of things, I've seen it done several times. This is at the center of the Boeing/Airbus dispute. We accuse them of getting direct subsidies from the European governments to fund their aircraft development, while they accuse Boeing of getting subsidies in terms of research done by NASA.

Due to the high cost of space flight, at least when it's handled by the government, the traditional space launch systems corporate entities have not yet decided to get into the manned flight buisness without government funding. At least that's my poinion. I can see your point of NASA holding on to it for longer than it should.

I don't agree with your assessment of the TPS damage and the O-Ring problem, these were not a problem that creeped up over the years. The O-ring/temperature problem was ignored by management so that they could keep schedule; while the risk of the foam shedding was always there and known by NASA, but was downgraded as more flights were not seriously affected by it and no easy fixes were available.

Lastly, I'm not sure if the shuttle could be handled by other agencies, or at least any better. It's an experimental aircraft, never ment for long term use. While a fantastic peice of engineering, I don't see it as practical in its current form.

Re:Should be more like this

[WindBourne]

For example NASA let SRB O-ring problems creep up on them over many years. Same thing with TPS damage by foam. They don't deal with things which change slowly over time. They work on feel, rather than analysis.

You make it sound like challenger and columbia were slow mistakes. There were not. The shuttles have a known set of issues. All mechanical things do. We are asking the most complex piece of equipment ever built to work in the harshest of environments. All of the issues with each shuttle were known way ahead of time. In both cases, engineers wanted to either delay and/or inspect. The problem in BOTH of these, was that people in charge were politicians. In the case of the colmbia, o'keefe had apointed a set of yes men who had less engineering and more "management/polical" experience. They were happy to ignore the suggestions, advice, and even pleadings of those below them to please those above. NASA did not screw up. O'keefe and his political appointees did. Likewise, the same for the challenger. The real lesson from colmbia will be that real engineers need to be put in charge, not "managers".

Re:Should be more like this

[suitepotato]

It should be sold, as in licensed, and not merely given away as that generates licensing revenue for the government which if the laws covering it were written right, would allow a lessening of general tax revenue being sent to NASA proportionate to licensing income to a certain point above which NASA reaps the excess to expand their operations.

It should of course be in the domain of the executive and legislative branches as per usual as to international licensing/sharing of data gleaned from NASA work.

NASA should be in the business of straddling the line between government operations and private operations as a bridge between our heavy/technological industries and the government so that what we as taxpayers invest comes back to us in the form of improvements in our standard of living. It will never be NASA taking us to the moon for vacations. It will be private companies. We shouldn't do anything that cuts off or otherwise puts off that eventual future.

Re:Should be more like this

[jafac]

Because I am who I am, I really like what you're saying.

But tell me, do you have any evidence of your accusation? I would like to propagate this argument, because it applies to nearly every technological endeavor. I know that at the software startup I began work at 15 years ago, the company had bright promise. Then they hired a "professional businessman" to run the company. He succeeded in running the company, technically, into the ground - but on the other hand, he succeeded in positioining the company for a buyout by a competitor, and we all made a lot of money - but the market was deprived of what was technically, a superior product. I see this story repeated time and time again. In fact, Dilbert is a cronicling of this pheonomenon.

Now - I can see the argument that a lot of engineers don't really have the business vision or people skills or negotiating power that a "professional businessman" does. On the other hand, "professional businessmen" tend to lack deep understanding of crucial technical issues that can sandbag their "vision". Your accusation levelled particularly at O'Keefe (and indirectly, at the philosophy that George W Bush governs our nation by: that we need businesspeople running government, not technocrats, or policy engineers, also known as "wonks" - even Political Science folks). I'd really like to see a detailed write up with concrete examples of how O'Keefe, in particular, was a problem in the way you describe. And I'd also like to know if you feel the same about Bush's latest appointee to head of NASA.

Re:Should be more like this

[jafac]

Discoveries uncovered by public funding should be GPL - (or similar - like public domain). If part of the research was government funded, and part was private, then either the specific ideas that were discovered by government should be public, or a pro-rata scheme should be written into the license of the patent.

The goal of government funding for R&D should never be to generate revenue directly. The goal should be to give private research a leg-up, which aids the whole economy, because R&D translates into more or less, productivity enhancement. If the government-funded R&D is locked down by sale and exclusive exploitation by a private entity, that productivity enhancement does not benefit the people who paid for the research, and is basically the equivalent of corporate welfare.

I would not be opposed to US-funded research being public, but only to US companies who hired US workers and paid US taxes - and protect such discoveries from exploitation by foreign governments or companies, or "US companies" who do not have a significant US employment or tax revenue base. (companies with headquartes in Barbados or such - to enjoy the protection of the US military and US law, but to avoid US regulation - ie: traitors).

Re:Should be more like this

[jafac]

As far as foam-strikes go, they certainly were aware of the foam strikes, but they had no idea how much damage potential there was, until AFTER the Challenger disaster, they tested shooting chunks of foam out of an air cannon at a mock-up of the shuttle wing, and were shocked at the damage. They didn't realize how much damage the foam could cause at 500 mph. They didn't realize how much the foam would slow down in such a short distance. The calculations based on the mass of smaller foam chunks didn't support the theory that they could lose a vehicle. But the air cannon tests proved it conclusively.

Maybe someone should have done an air cannon test back when they first noticed the foam-shedding problem. But hindsight is 20/20.

Re:Should be more like this

[WindBourne]

But tell me, do you have any evidence of your accusation?

First off, I have worked with NASA, so I am biased.

Read the Columbia report. If you read it, they point their fingers in a number of direction, but in the end, they point to the very top management as being the crux of the problem. Basically, it nicely says that they did not listen to those below them. It was the same issue with with challenger. The people up top were threatening the engineers with their jobs if they did not go along with the go decision. In the both cases, the top people were light-weight engineers (and some were none engineers).

A good example of how inept O'Keefe was, is that he was willing to accept that the shuttle would end in 2010, but new rockets would not be ready until 2012. IOW, there is a deliberate 2 year minimum window where the USA can not put man into space. That is totally ridiculus. Worse, he was not working towards encouraging the private world to step forward.

As to the current guy, well, they are night and day. Michael Griffin is highly educated, loads of research, and generally a yearning to return to space. Mike is part of Mars Society and Planetary Society. Mike has spent his life either researching, managing, or both. Assuming that GWB and congress do not get in the way, we are going places (and even if they get in the way, he may steamroll over them assuming that he is not fired).

I have made no bones in my past postings what I think about Bush. If you look at my foes, all but one are because I spoke out against GWB and his policies. All the funnier, because the 2 presidents I hate the most (reagan and current bush), I ended up working on DOD and intel world related projects, that I thought were horrible (but they were very cool jobs with loads of academic stimulation).

Re:Should be more like this

[MichaelSmith]

I would not be opposed to US-funded research being public, but only to US companies who hired US workers and paid US taxes

I'm sorry but this is frankly impossible. To be fair to the US public you would have to give the information equally to every US citizen, and trust them not to leak the information to evil foreigners like me.

Better for NASA to take the profit up front. Sell the technology to US owned businesses and invest the proceeds in new research.

Re:Should be more like this

[WindBourne]

well, that was exploitation on somebodies part.

Obviously thinking along the lines of...

[Anonymous Coward]

"So these atom things... just stuff spinning around other stuff right? Okayee, we're in business!"

As usual..

[zegebbers]

I'm sure we'll see a whole lot of people suffering from Separation anxiety. **boom boom**

Re:I say, awesome.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Well, they seem to have trouble exploring the infinitely large, so they may have better luck with the infinitely small...

What about nano-economics?

[pieterh]

If there's one lesson that the shuttle sage should have taught NASA - even without the many other demonstrations from around the world such as Japan's 5th Generation Computing, the EU's Eureka programme, etc. - is that large-budget top-down science does not produce value for money.

The best motor for innovation is competition, and the main problem with NASA-style science is that it eliminates scientific and engineering competition and replaces it with burocratic competition. Real progress is made by small teams that see risk as opportunity, while NASA-style science is done by large teams that see risk as something to be avoided at all costs.

Let's see research conducted around a much more open competition for the available money, provided more in the form of prizes and awards and less as research grants.

Let's stop paying people on their skills in writing grant applications and start rewarding people for their ability to think in creative and useful ways.

Re:What about nano-economics?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Real progress is made by small teams that see risk as opportunity, while NASA-style science is done by large teams that see risk as something to be avoided at all costs.

First of all, up to recently, space exploration was an activity that can't possibly be boosted by competition. Totally New Things[tm] usually come from government-funded research labs, such as the ARPANET, the moon landing program, etc... That's because such ground-breaking experiments can only be put together at a complete loss. Once the road is open, let competition pave it.

Secondly, it's true NASA today is stifled by a risk-avoiding attitude, but that's only because the administration (and the public) doesn't really have a strong desire to go to space, therefore any small problem leads to a reduction in NASA budget. The great things NASA did in the past were done because the administration just had to achieve what Kennedy promised, otherwise they'd have lost the race to the moon. In that light, loss of astronauts and giant rockets exploding right and left weren't very big concerns compared to losing face with the USSR. Nowadays, there is no USSR to compete against.

Re:What about nano-economics?

[MichaelSmith]

Let's stop paying people on their skills in writing grant applications and start rewarding people for their ability to think in creative and useful ways.

I think science is totally broken because of the secretive, competitive approach which scientists take to towards their work.

Science is not really a commercial activity, people who spend 10 years working on something and lose in the last month to another team can have their entire career at risk over small issues of secrecy and professional ethics.

An open source approach in science would accomplish two things:

1. You could easily prove who had what idea first
2. Scientists could immediately build on the work of others without being accused of plagurism

Right now, working in science is too much of a risk for people in some fields; particularly biotech. Why devote your career to something when you are judged by a first past the post system?

Re:What about nano-economics?

[A beautiful mind]

Real science is what you've described.

Commercialized science is not science, just refining.

Re:What about nano-economics?

[Kaenneth]

Hopefully China will have some manned missions soon, to give the U.S. Space program a kick in the pants.

Re:What about nano-economics?

[pieterh]

It's nice to see such faith in the power of top-down science. I don't think the moon landing was a road to anything at all except several decades of very expensive militrary / space spending. Arpanet is the classic example of successful government-driven research but it stands out exactly because such successes are rare. Arpanet succeeded for many reasons - timing, highly skilled individuals, essence of the problem. I do not think that government funding was essential but that is speculation.

Slashdot readers are such fans of science and technology that they tend to overlook the small issues, such as actually getting results from research.

I'm quite certain of two things:

1. NASA are structurally incapable of doing anything useful with money.

2. Anything called "Nano" is most often hype and vapour.

I'm willing to bet $1000 that nothing significant comes out of this research, and that the programme is quietly scrapped after 5 years, or reincorporated into some other programme and renamed to the hype-du-jour.

And yes, I'm quite amazed that 40 years after we walked on the moon, we are ending the programme, because of falling chunks of foam. There was no open road to competition, just a huge hole and lots of money.

Re:What about nano-economics?

[Jeremi]

I'm quite amazed that 40 years after we walked on the moon, we are ending the programme, because of falling chunks of foam.

You don't think 24 years is a good run for a single spacecraft design? Hell, most car designs don't last half that long, and they are much simpler. It's time to move on to something better.

Re:What about nano-economics?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to disagree. The current trend towards "commercialisation" of Grant Distribution will bite us all on the arse in 20 years.

Hard Science research doesn't pay off commercially for years. Look at history if you don't believe me.

But now it's increasingly difficult to get a grant unless you can demonstrate that there's a good chance of commercialisation in the "near" future. As a result we have lots of "trivial" research, and very little new work being done. Even Universities, which used to be bastions of the pure research, now are driven by this economic pragmatism. It's harder than its ever been to get approval (let alone funding!) without an "Industry Partner", which means that the pure research simply isnt being done.

In 20 years time when that pure science would have been sufficiently developed to solve real-world problems, we'll be asking "Why did we let this happen?"

It won't be a return to the Dark Ages, but it will be considerably dimmer than what we had from the 1950's though to the early 1990's.

Re:What about nano-economics?

[happyemoticon]

Furthermore, many corporations are terrified of technology which fundamentally transforms the market. Granted, this is not science per se, but it still represents a way in which corporations have a vested interest in iterative, trivial progress. They expect to extract all of the money they can from a particular technology before cooking up the next one: stable, predictable, and stagnant. Yeah, it's old hat, but look at the internet revolution: Xerox dropped the ball because they had a vested interest in stability.

Re:What about nano-economics?

[pieterh]

Yes, 24 years is a great run for a single design. But what I said, was: we are ending this programme with no successor or evolution. That means that the design might as well have lasted 1 month: the value of any technological feat is not the one-off but the incremental. NASA has managed great feats but not the only one that counts: a process for incremental improvements over the long term.

To give a simile: imagine a company that made one very good, very fast computer. Wonderful. But if they can't make a successor, and another, and so on for 30, 50 years, they have ultimately failed. /not impressed

Re:What about nano-economics?

[sgt_doom]

SIR, you have explained the situation most excellently!

And to all those who will take exception to what you have explained so lucidly - just do a little reading in the history of science and technology - the vast majority of the tech stuff (like...digital electronics, microelectronics, computer science, advanced telecommunications, biomedical engineering, materials science, etc., etc., etc.) derived from the NASA/Apollo program research. [Everything almost, but Velcro, which the lowbrows have wrongfully ascribed the space program for too many years????]

That tech stuff lead to new jobs which replaced all those offshored manufacturing jobs - now that these new jobs have been offshored - what's to replace them??????

Re:What about nano-economics?

[wesman83]

thats engineering

Re:What about nano-economics?

[Shihar]

Speaking as someone who has worked in research, in a 'secretive' nanotechnology company none the less, I completely disagree. First, these companies are not truly secretive. They want their name out in the forefront. Rule #1 to getting venture capitalist funding is to make a name for yourself. They tend to publish discoveries as they make them, with just enough lag time to patent them such that if someone wants to use it, they need to pay. Start ups are money starved and so don't think twice about licensing out their patents. The only other time when a startup is truly secretive about what they discover is when they intend to use it in the near future. They hold back simply because they think they have a hot idea and what to be the first to the market with it.

If you want reason #1 why commercial science is a good thing, it is because it draws people to science. In an ideal world you would have people go into R&D for joy of it. In reality, if you are going to charge $100,000 + for schooling and put them through academic hell for 4+ years of their life, a big fat pay check really keeps people from throwing up their hands and getting a degree in business or economics. As someone who went through the academics to get into R&D, money really did drive some bright people to stay in. More then one smart person stayed in because they knew at the end of the line they could join a company, get into some serious R&D, and make a small pile for themselves. If you had told them that the only place for R&D was in academia where advancement is snails pace, the pay is much harsher, and there is no prospect of forming your own company, a lot of people would have bolted for greener pastures.

People complain endlessly about commercial science, but to be honest, I can't fathom why. Nanotechnology discoveries are POURING in, Semiconducting technology is ever shrinking in size, and academia is forever still pumping out great ideas that are utterly worthless in practice. If there is a deficiency, I fail to see it. Everyone is doing their job damn good. Academia pours out tons of information that is utterly worthless for practical uses, startups take the risk and develop what the academia has created, and finally the larger production companies buy up the startups produce the technology. I am not saying that it is a perfect system that always works flawlessly or that IP laws are not fucked up, but it works pretty damn good.

Re:What about nano-economics?

[hcdejong]

Hell, most car designs don't last half that long, and they are much simpler.

Most car designs don't last half that long because they are much simpler. Aircraft designs typically last much longer than car designs; this is simple economics.

Oh, and isn't it ironic that many of the people who say it's time to move on from the Shuttle, advocate a return of the Saturn V?

Re:What about nano-economics?

[MichaelSmith]

The prime example I had in mind when I wrote the post you are replying to was the recent contraversy on MPML about an object called K40506A.

If you want to take a look this would be a good place to start.

Basically astronomers in this context work with the assumption that their infromation will be private until they choose to release it. But if somebody else finds the same object first and makes an announcement then they have priority and are considered the discoverer.

If these people had been more open with their information they would trust each other more and would more likely have accomplished more.

Re:What about nano-economics?

[Shihar]

You are missing two very important parts about that story.

1) That is not a symptom of commercial science. All science, regardless if it is academic in nature or commercial, hold back information until it can be confirmed. The entire peer review system is based upon the idea that you hold back information until you can be reasonably sure that it is true.

2) This is a good thing and helps improve science.

Last year I worked on a project with a commercial nanotechnology company. We were working on something that, once we figured out, we wanted to release to the public. The idea was already patented, so releasing it to the public could only bolster our reputation, help academics explore the field more, and give us cash flow if a commercial company wanted to implement it on a large scale. So, sufficient to say, we really wanted to make what we were doing public knowledge.

During the course of our experiments, I swear I screamed "Eureka!" at least a dozen times because I thought I had the problem solved. Sadly though, after swearing that we had something, I went back and retested. Some times it turned out that the equipment we were using was faulty and had given bad measurements. Other times the first analysis we did turned out great, but deeper analysis proved that there was nothing there. It is just the way the game is. If you come running out of your lab screaming every time you think you have it, you are going to have a very sore throat and a lot of irritated people when you need to retract what you just said. For the dozen times I thought I had it, all but one of those times did I truly have something.

The reason why the type of secrecy you cite is good for science is simply because people think they make discoveries all of the time and turn out to be dead wrong. When you come out and tell people you have something, then turn around and tell them a week later that your follow up tests showed that you don't, you just make noise, waste everyone's time, and look like an idiot for having to retract what you just said half of a dozen times. That, and the news media goes ape shit over every little finding you make. If you report that you find a highly toxic compound that kills cancer in cultured mice cells, the media will scream "SCIENTIST DISCOVER THE CURE FOR CANCER!!!111!!1!"

In your example, if the scientist had released the data as soon as they had it, that would not have diminished the credit they got for it. The reason why the held it back is because they simply wanted to retest their theory before telling people armed with multi-million dollar telescopes to spend time looking in the spot they pointed out. That isn't to say they don't want credit, as can be seen by the fact that they released their data early, even though they were not satisfied with their testing, but that the failure to release early has nothing to do with why scientist don't make claims until they are sure.

I think you vastly underestimate how often scientist think they have something and are dead wrong. Even as things stand now, the peer review system sends off discoveries to the journal junk pile from scientist that claim to have discovered something yet have not thoroughly tested their theory. The entire peer review system is built upon the idea that scientifically sound and proven work makes it public. If you have something that slips under the bar of that, the best you can hope for is a junk grade journal that no one reads. If people started to pour forth even more worthless information from half done experiments, nothing would change. Those unfinished or poorly run experiments would be tossed by reviewer of all but the worst journals, no scientist would bother to read the junk (as there would be more junk then there are people willing to read it), and people that submitted such incomplete work would look like idiots when they have to retract it.

As it stands there is more noise in the scientific community then even the most ardent research can keep up. Adding to the din with worthless and unproven data wouldn't help a thing.

I wonder...

[Ichigo Kurosaki]

I wonder if we will ever get to the point of nanotechnology described in Neal Stephenson's book The Diamond Age, where we have complete control of atoms and can buld infinetly strong structures infinetly small.

If we do the problem of sending vehicles to X will be much easier to due the fact that there would not be hardly as much inertia to overcome.

Its pretty obvious why NASA has there hands in nanotechnology development.

Re:I wonder...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I wonder if we'll ever reach the stage of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings where we can cast magic spells 'n' stuff. That way we could just magic ourselves to other planets.

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't make me get all Narnia up in your ass, pal.

Re:I wonder...

[forkazoo]

There is a limit to how small you want a space probe to be. Basically, you need a rocket that will get the final-stage booster going as fast as a it needs to be.

In other words, getting a few hundred kg of mass into orbit (or on a Mars trajectory) is only slightly more difficult than getting nothing to orbit.

Re:I wonder...

[Master of Transhuman]

Just to comment on one point, it's pretty much established - Drexler pointed it out in his seminal nanotech work, "Engines of Creation" - that it will NOT be possible to produce "infinitely strong structures infinitely small."

It will be possible to produce materials that are stronger than at present, but there is a physical limit. (IANAP - I Am Not A Physicist - or ME - Materials Engineer)

Drexler's first work covers the possibilities of nanotech very well, although do note that he warns that he describes some applications in contexts that might in fact be made obsolete by nanotech.

Re:I wonder...

[jafac]

There's certainly a lot of promise for such technology.

For instance, Stephenson's aerostats could "fly" because they had a structure strong enough to maintain an inner vacuum, but light enough to be lighter than the air they displaced. Such technology, if applied on a large scale, could solve many problems we currently have with space travel. A vehicle so constructed could lift spacecraft out of the earth's atmosphere, allowing them to accellerate to orbital speeds using far less propellant. Conversely, the same vehicle would have enough propellant on board, in orbit, to possibly decellerate quickly enough, that it could reach sub-mach speeds while still outside the atmosphere, which works around the problem of the heat generated by attempting to use aerobraking to bleed off 17,000 mph of velocity.

This would have huge ramifications for how spacecraft are designed.

Even if this idea wasn't feasible, it's probably still possible that a much better material could be constructed for a craft like the space shuttle, in terms of being a more durable heat-resistant tile. Perhaps a more flexible ceramic, that could both expand and contract with heating to the airframe, and also deal with the thousands of degrees of heating without melting, and also withstand minor impacts.

There are a lot of possibilities with regard to the materials aspect of nano tech, for space flight. Some are already utilized, in terms of thin films, coatings, etc.

Re:I wonder...

[QuantumG]

Ya know, you're the first person I've heard actually state that. I agree with you, but I have never actually seen the math to back it up. SpaceX's Falcon I can deliver 580kg to the space station, for $5.9 million. What you're claiming is that if we only want to deliver 2kg to the space station we're still going to have to pay $5.9 million if no-one else wants to go with us..

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

You would do that, you Christian apologist lover.

Re:I wonder...

[forkazoo]

Well, maybe not exactly $5.9 million. Maybe it would be $5.89 million, or something. The actual fuel costs of a launch are pretty insignificant, and they would be the only real change between a 2kg launch and a 580 kg launch.

Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[PDoc]

Fir gawd sake! Dealing with matter on an atomic level has been around since Newton's time - and in it's modern incarnation since the late 19th century. It's called chemistry. Using macroscopic tools to inact precise molecular interactions and rearrangements. You know it's gone way to far when simple crown-ether derivatives get renamed "molecular cages" or worse "nano capsules" in an attempt to get funding. Want some funding for your research proposal? Drop in "nano", "bio" and "green" a few times, loose any detail of what you're acutally trying to do, and no problem...

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Nanoscience/Nanotechnology is the intersection of Physics, Chemistry, and/or Biology. It is when two or three of these fields is combined synergistically.

Yes, the study of small things has been around for hundreds of years. But you will find that within the last 100 years chemistry and physics have grown in their tangents. Nanoscience is putting them back together along with biology.

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[QuantumG]

An idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about gets modded up by other idiots who don't know he's an idiot. Gotta love Slashdot. It'd be funny if it didn't remind us so much of the US congress.

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[fermion]

The difference between classical chemistry and nanotechnology is that the properties no longer depend solely on the types of bonds or the valenes of the atoms. It is not simply a matter of introducing catalysts so the reaction rate increases. Nanotech also deals with the study of size dependent properties of known materials. Nanotech will deal with the formation and study of new materials whose sizes and structure would have been difficult to study prior to the characterising technology of the 1980's. It is true that some nano is just regular classic chemistry, but that is just to be expected.

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[PDoc]

True, that's the pure premise of nanotech, but it doesn't seem to work like that. I'm an organic chemist, so most of this materials stuff isn't in my domain, but I do read and understand most of the journals. And the flaw is that because governments and the appropriate bodies love nanotech as a buzz word, far too many researchers use the term overliberally, and corrupt it's true meaning.
Nasa has every right, and should be at the forefront of research into new materials et c. But this is materials chemistry/physics/engineering. Not nanotech.

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[Haydn Fenton]

Yeah, happens a lot, in all kinds of fields.

Occasionally when the media (or people who are in high places) use words incorrectly because it sounds cooler, don't expect them to go back to their original meaning. Heck, don't even expect to be able to use them for their original meaning without being looked at\talked about as if you're stupid (ironically, by the ignorant majority).

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

And whos the idiot wasting his time pointing this fact out to all the people who dont give a rats ass?

Yes, that idiot, would be you.

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[PDoc]

I don't know what I'm talking about? http://www-burton.ch.cam.ac.uk/group.htm#PHD

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[Teclis]

Ahh, Classic ignorance.

Oh so many times I've heard this arguement. I'm a researcher in Surface Science and I look at atoms and molecules all the time. Chemical synthesis is very amazing, I give you that. Being able to attatch specific functional groups to complex molecules is no small task. However, the controlled manipulation of these molecules and atoms in physical space is not something that classical Chemistry can do. It's tools developed by engineers and physicists that are now allowing the next generation of nano-technology. STM and AFM are examples of two very powerful (but each with its own weaknesses) tools. The state of the art can be described as cave men tools trying to build a sky scraper. It's not going to happen. But we continue to use these tools and develop them until we have tools good enough to do what we need. Now, back to chemistry. There are now several groups in chemistry who use the tools developed by physicists to study chemical properties. An example is controled chemical reactions on surface step edges, very interesting stuff. Now I ask you, what is the difference between this reaction and the reaction done in a beaker 100 years ago?

The key difference is that we have nano-scale control of the atoms/molecules. I would hardly call mixing two beakers of solution together (OK, a bit simplified, but you get my message) nano-scale control.

Well, for one thing, we can now observe intemediate states and control reactions like never before. We can induce reactions at will and hopefully, (the big one) Manipulate (with control) reactions in a way we could never do before. Imagine building DNA without enzymes to cut and paste like a Frankenstein. COMPLETE control of the nano and sub-nano scale is far from here. But we are making progress like mad. 25 years ago, nobody would have thought this possible, but it's now happening. It's a bit scarey to think of the materials we can make, but it's exciting to think of the possibilities. Sure Chemistry has been good to us, and yes we need it, but there is no possible way that Chemistry alone, as practiced for so long can accomplish what modern Physical Chemistry (or Chemical Physics) can do.

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[Alu3205]

I can't believe you used the word "synergistically."

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[PDoc]

Nah - you're missing my point. What you guys are doing blows my mind - it's years off being practical, but hell, you've got to start somewhere. What I'm having a go at is researchers dropping "nano" into a proposal to make it sell. Sometimes its appropriate, and would seem ideal in your area. But more often than not, it's not appropriate, and is corrupting the science. BTW, don't diss us organic chemists out of hand. Remember, we've been building things like brevetoxin for years, and that's only through exceedingly careful control. Kind of like painting the Mona Lisa whilst blind folded and wearing boxing gloves. Not subtle, sure, but capable. Lastly, my group's about to delve into "chiral surfaces". So I guess we'll need some of your tools soon too!

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[QuantumG]

No offense, but what you're arguing is that people are abusing the word nanotechnology to get funding whilst claiming that nanotechnology is just chemistry. i.e., you're assigning malice to people based on an argument founded in ignorance. Yes people get funding to do things which are not related to nanotechnology in the slightest just because they throw "nano" into the title of the funding application, but have you considered that maybe they, like you, actually think nanotechnology is related to their field? Nanotechnology is the study of precise control of molecular scale systems. Eric Drexler's work is nanotechnology. Ralph C. Merkle's work is nanotechnology. To claim it is just organic chemistry is naive.

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear god. Lose! Lose! Lose! Not Loose!

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, I was quite proud of that filthy word used to represent how physics, chemsitry, and biology are being symbiotically combined.

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

pfffft.... You only have one asian guy in your group. And you call that a research group! HA HA

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[wikdwarlock]

No, because Physics, Chemistry, and Biology are all the same thing, more or less. Nanotech is the intersection of these things and ENGINEERING. The explicit difference is that if a human designer puts the atoms/molecules where he or she wants them, for specific, pre-defined functions, they are doing more than just chemistry. Sure, some chemistry, biology, Physics, etc, do this already, but it is misinformed to simply say that nanotech is the intersection of these fields. Without the engineers, it's all just journal articles and pretty animations.

Re:Nanotech - otherwise known as Chemistry

[Anonymous Coward]

Arrogant as well as ignorant. Good combination.

hmm

[NanoGator]

Why do I have the feeling that before too much longer, 'nano' will be the next big buzzword? Buy the new 'NanoPod Video Player!'

Okay, sorry, I have nothing interesting to say about this article. Just remembering the good ol' days when every new exciting tech began with an E.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy the new 'NanoPod Video Player!'

As if mp3 players weren't easy enough to lose already, you want to make them smaller?! :)

On the other hand, if you make them that small, just implant them into the ear then you could call it an ePod and we can go full circle!

Re:hmm

[plj]

Buy the new 'NanoPod Video Player!'

Bzzt. It is actually called nPod.

But before it can be realized, nMac must appear first.

Re:hmm

[xenoandroid]

Remember the Nano virtual pets? (Nano Baby, Nano Dog, etc.)

NASA should be an IP clearing house

[Anonymous Coward]

My advice: if anything comes of this nanotech effort, NASA should sell the technology to private industry as fast as possible. Get out of the operational side and start developing the next big thing.

You hit the nail on the head and frankly I think NASA should be doing EVERYTHING this way. NASA should just open up everything they do outright for licensing by private parties, from the rocket boosters to the robot technology on up.

If you look at the state of private space development, NASA is basically already acting as R&D for these people, who are looking at the overengineered overcareful things NASA has done and trying to recreate this as something relatively efficient or sane for private business; however NASA is not being very helpful as such because we don't have their exact designs, so to some degree the people trying to reengineer this stuff for the private sector (1) have to work in the dark, creating designs from scratch and (2) are limited to the outside fringes of industry because people in "big business" are not going to be terribly comfortable with unproven technology such as Mr. Rutan and co. are working with.

We should look at NASA for what it is-- a subsidised R&D department for an economy which doesn't have the courage to do hard or weird things on its own-- and make that explicit. Make it like the NSF for technology/engineering development, with the focus on space exploration because that's a problem at the edges of engineering that tends to uncover problems no one else has with solutions everyone else can use (see: mars robotics, apollo computer etc), but with a stated mission of getting the technology they create into the hands of private developers as soon as it's created.

Re:I say, awesome.

[Zen Punk]

Well, there was the probe to Mars launched the other day, but you wouldn't hear about it on Slashdot...they did have a story about the delay of the launch, though.

we all know what this is leading up to...

[Anonymous Coward]

...terminator type 2 robotic soldiers.

if it doesn't a half baked military application then it is less likely to get funding...

take Bush for example.

and this comment is relative to the Bush perspective on Iran, in current news...

Re:we all know what this is leading up to...

[Master of Transhuman]

Unfortunately for Bush, we Transhumans are likely to be the terminator soldiers - and we don't like Bush. Or whoever happens to be running the country when the tech makes it to reality.

Besides, they've got "terminator robots" now.

They're called Marines.

They're just dumber and die easier than the ones in the movies.

Well...

[Ichigo Kurosaki]

When it come to the applications suitable to NASA, i.e. infinitely strong materials with almost no weight, It is more important to be able to control the actual bonding of atoms rather the atoms themselves.

If you could bond two atoms together where the bonding forces are greater any force know to man, then you could every object one atom thick and indestructible.

Imagine the bullet-proof clothing you could make out this or the weight of a spacecrafts fuel tank, or the weight of anything for that matter.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a computer the size of an atom! Or indestructable atom-thick skyscraper walls!

Re:Well...

[Master of Transhuman]

Uhm, sorry, nanotech does not deal with intra-atomic forces - or necessarily even with atomic-level positioning, for the most part. It deals with molecular-level positioning and manipulation - orders of magnitude bigger stuff.

Atomic bonding belongs to the field of femtotech, if I'm not mistaken. Which is barely a gleam in someone's eye, at this point, AFAIK.

Re:I say, awesome.

[Poromenos1]

Or they could use something infinitely small to explore the infinitely large.

Pathetic..

[HEbGb]

This is nothing more than an attempt by NASA to appear relevant. They're little more than a sink-hole for people's hard-earned money. Nano is the latest hype, designed only to keep them seeming at the forefront, so that congress can justify continuing to fund them.

Disgusting.

Ethical issues

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm worried that nanotechnology could be used to produce nanoviruses that can differentiate between races, leading to another holocaust.

Re:Ethical issues

[Master of Transhuman]

Then you'd better be worried about Israel, because word is they've been doing genetic marker biowarfare research for some time now.

Zionists are very big on the race issue.

In general, while nanotech could easily be used to create genetic marker based nanoweapons (as a Transhuman, I'm interested in those myself), it could also easily be used to defend against such weapons. Although there would be the issue of an arms race much like computer malware and computer security.

While the weapons could be very destructive to a given target, dissemination and distribution of the weapon to sufficient targets to have a major impact before a defense is made would be the issue - the same as most current bioweapons. Like CBR weapons, most of these weapons would be better used as point target weapons - hitting some specific target rather than trying to be a WMD.

What irritates me is that it probably isn't going to be feasible to produce a weapon that only kills priests, lawyers, cops and politicians - i.e., a "philosophy bomb".

"Grey goo" will increase space travel demand

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like an ingenious marketing ploy to me.

Once nanobots take over this planet in the form of Grey Goo... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo Organic life's only hope for survival become space travel.

I just don't get this

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time NASA comes up lately I see a bunch of libertarian extremists ranting about how public space programs are so evil and we need to destroy them so private space programs can flourish, and a bunch of NASA fanboys ranting about how the private space programs suck so much and they need to get out of the way so NASA can work.

WTF?

Why can't we have a great public space exploration program AND great private space development? We may not have either right now, but I don't see any reason we can't have both. In particular I don't see why either public or private space development is helped by trying to demolish or tear down the other one.

Re:I just don't get this

[zippthorne]

Until recently (1998 i believe) private space launches were illegal. Of course, you could send your private communications satellite after sufficient testing and regulatory rigamarole, but it would be on NASA candle.

Re:I just don't get this

[jafac]

Why can't we have a great public space exploration program AND great private space development?

because such an arrangement does not support extremist ideology at either end of the political spectrum, and would allow those of us in the middle to live and prosper free of conflict and power games on which the extremists thrive.

That's why.

Re:I just don't get this

[jafac]

Of course, you could send your private communications satellite after sufficient testing and regulatory rigamarole, but it would be on NASA candle.

Not really true.

One could always go to the French or the Russians to do spacelaunch. And NASA isn't really involved much at all in the commercial launch business the Air Force does out of Vandenberg.

And that was the 1990's.

Today, there are more options. Sealaunch, Japan is getting into the commercial launch business, and soon, players like SpaceX will be entering the field. Now, as far as heavy launch goes, options are still pretty small. Few of these other players are able to launch really huge satellites, but ESA just launched a really big one on an Arienne, and both Boeing and Lockheed are going to be launching heavies (Delta IV, Atlas V) out of Vandenberg, without any stinkin' NASA "interfering". (if that's what you want to call it).

Spacelaunch has always been, a very complicated, very risky, very expensive business. Players like SpaceX and Sealaunch are changing that for smaller payloads. But the infrastructure needed to loft the heavy stuff, for a long time, will be dominated by the USAF, NASA, and ESA.

Re:I just don't get this

[sillybilly]

I have no problem with private space exploration - go ahead, fly if you want, nobody's stopping you, and if the FAA/FCC/FDA is stopping you, I'll be yelling foul on your side.

But I don't like the rule that everything has to be rushed to commercialization as fast as possible. Some things take a while to become commercial and profitable, and require quite a long period of nurturing first, such as raising kids, or space mining/space energy production/space self-sustaining ecosystems as life insurance against a nuclear catastrophy/war on Earth. I don't like making it a rule that when NASA develop something, then they must hand it over to someone unqualified as fast as possible. Someone whose only goal is to make profit off of it, even it it means running it into the ground. Yeah, listen to the profitmonger vultures drooling, ready to take a bite, when they see some value somewhere, that took immense effort to creat, but it's free for them if they could get their hands on it. And when they get it, they just suck the life out of it, turn it inside out, leaving a carcass behind, and move on to destroy something else. The free market privatized economy is not kind to nonprofitable things, yet some things still have to be done, even if not profitable, such as education, basic research, etc. It's very profitable in the long run, but the market only cares about this very quarter's earnings, the bottom line right now, not something that will turn economic benefits 50 years from now, not the bottom line decades from now. At $500 million per shuttle launch, how are you going to squeeze profit out of it? OK, maybe the russians can launch a nonreusable polluting space capsule for $50 million, still, so what? Where is the money, the return, other than communication satellites? There is no space energy production, nor moon-mining yet. We'll send millionares into space to pay the ticket? Remember how the Concord tanked? Even millionares don't care that much for fancy stuff. NASA is doing basic research, which is a very important thing, and it's seldom profitable. I don't think there is a problem with commercial companies launching satellites, even these days, and the Shuttle will cooperate and piggyback a few of these satellites on its trips, or even go make a pitstop to fix a few, just like your neighbour might pick up a jug of milk for you on his way to the grocery store. But NASA's and the Shuttle's major function is basic infrastructure, to get out there, and provide basic research, to pave the way. Remember the satellite radio business that tanked? - and they were about to let their satellites fall into the atmosphere, when the military came to the rescue and took over, because what a waste of value, what a decision that the freemarket came up with - burn up the satellites.

There are also other things that shold not be privatized/free market - such as police and military - because then all you have is feudalism/dictatorship/oppression all over again, with those who got the guns milking everyone else dry, and not fairly providing security/order in return. Who owns the police? Who owns the military? The people do, or should. Who owns the space shuttle? Well, until it's not profitable, the people do, cuz anyone else will just run this wonder into the ground.

Instead let private space companies build something equivalent to the shuttle, and run it for a while, and when they do better/cheaper/more efficiently, don't worry, NASA won't be messing with the shuttle anymore, just like NASA uses UPS and Fedex, besides the USPS.

Re:I just don't get this

[arodland]

Because the public program will be able to use the public dollar to run the private endeavors into the ground, and then use the fact that they're the only ones with operating experience to justify their getting every job? Having "competition" where one of the parties is owned by the government is the worst of both worlds.

NASA needs to reward creativity

[Anonymous Coward]

Example is the x-prize.

8 guys in control room with laptops at an existing airport launched a ship into space, compared to the thousands of NASA employees and special expensive large acreage areas no one else can use.

Which one would you want your tax dollars spent on?

NASA needs to learn to to reward creativity instead of ignoring it.

I know, I tried to get my innovative stuff to them, they just ignore you because they know everything. Now I take my stuff elsewhere, they lose and so do you.

Wow

[unts]

Nanotechnology is going to be huge!

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Others are hoping for the inverse.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Pah, doesn't even show up on my radar...

New Materials, was: Should be more like this

[Crixus]

I agree that NASA does do some great development work, and this will no doubt lead to many new and interesting discoveries.

What I am really waiting for is the latest advance in materials science. Yes we have some cool alloys, and other composite metals (aluminum and ceramic composites, for example) but when are we truly going to develop or discover the really cool materials that are super light weight, and super strong, and exhibit properties like the materials that are occasionally, and allegedly discovered at UFO crash sites? :-)

  Rich...

Re:New Materials, was: Should be more like this

[Master of Transhuman]

Well, actually, AFAIK no such metals have ever been discovered at UFO crash sites. Metals, yeah, but nothing superstrong - just unusual alloys.

In fact, most of the stuff found from UFOs is some weird fluffy stuff. Like maybe alien semen from some bug jerking off as he flies over Washington...

Or maybe that's how they flush their johns...

There's a limit to how strong a physical material can be, IIRC, and we're not far from it now with some of our materials. Nanotech will only improve that so much. Drexler pointed that out in his first book, "Engines of Creation" IIRC.

Re:New Materials, was: Should be more like this

[Anonymous Coward]

If I told you, I would have to kill you.

Re:New Materials, was: Should be more like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone has already invented a way to make metal parts that "spring back into shape" if they get deformed - ie. imagine your car's fender popping back out after a collision and no need to visit a mechanic or sunglasses that didn't get bent out of shape if you sat on them.

The problem with this technology, last I recall, is that it was quite expensive to manufacture.

The only reference I can quickly find to this is flexon7:

http://www.visionrx.com/library/enc/enc_eyeframes. asp

End result

[AtariAmarok]

"As the result of a miscalculation involving metric vs imperial units, the entire NASA shuttle fleet was swallowed by a small dog"

Re:End result

[Anonymous Coward]

As the result of a shameless rip off Douglas Adams turned in his grave.

Hot air

[Alomex]

to be able to control individual atoms and molecules

This part is mostly hot air.

well enough to design molecule-size machines, advanced electronics and "smart" materials."

This actually might happen to a certain extent.

Because...

[doug141]

Nasa wants to land on the Muon!

Re:Because...

[Anonymous Coward]

lol bravo.

Oil is the ticket

[Sgt_Nikon]

Forget uses for NASA, how about create some nano machines that can create crude oil from garbage! All they need to do is rearrage the garabage molecules into crude oil or maybe hydrogen. Then the we can support our retarded "throw-away" society.

Re:Oil is the ticket

[Master of Transhuman]

Shale oil extraction should be feasible with nanotech.

Not to mention dumping nanotech into an oil field instead of water, thus avoiding destroying the oil fields like Saudi Arabia has been doing.

More efficient solar cells and wind turbines and wave energy extractors will of course be possible as well.

Not to mention more efficient engines to use the energy extracted.

Could even lead to enabling technologies that might make figuring out how to do fusion easier - even cold fusion (nanotech instrumentation might be the only way to prove that legit, if it is.)

Imagine...

[01101101 01100101]

A Beow ... nevermind .. screw it..

I for one wel... naw, screw it

In Soviet Russia .. Nanotec... laaaaame

the GN... err .. nevermind

Hmmm..

--
--I think therefore I sig

Re:Imagine...

[Master of Transhuman]

You forgot:

1) Make things small.
2) ???
3) Profit!!!

Re:Imagine...

[StarfishOne]

4) Lose very small things..

5) ???

6) Start company developing small things that find small things

7) Profit again!

Almost sounds like a complete business plan ;P

YAWN

[Anonymous Coward]

a press release makes it to NASA. well welcome to the party NASA. The rest of us have been working on nanotec for years. Maybe you should visit one of the many centers of Nanotechnology at our univeristies and national labs

nonotech

[retzwerx]

molecule sized machines? this could be interesting and by far scary, imagine a nano-spy unmanned vehicle or a keylogging hardware. tsktsk. it could happen.

Re:What about nano-economics? - mod parent down!

[davids-world.com]

Sorry, but have you actually worked as a researcher somewhere?

Science is pretty much open source, in most fields. The Nanotech people might be a little more secretive because the commercial application is so close, and of course the commercial research and development groups don't publish a lot of papers, but in general I wonder how you've come to think that.

I don't know of anyone who was been working on something for 10 years secretly. I don't know anyone who would have a name in the field, attend conferences and get research grants without publishing one's work.

And pretty much every researcher already works by building on the works of others. Science has used the open source principle ages before any software engineer was even feeding a machine with punchcards.

Re:I say, awesome.

[TummyX]

What do you expect from the geek equivalent of tabloid news?

Re:I say, awesome.

[TummyX]

Case and point: I got modded down troll for saying that.

Uhh, this is news?

[Joe Jarvis]

The whole federal government is supporting nanotechnology... and has for years.

Re:What about nano-economics? - mod parent down!

[Anonymous Coward]

10 years certainly is an exaggeration, but many researchers certainly do keep their best ideas close to their chest as long as they are working on their own projects, and only publish once they have enough results to write a paper from it. If this kind of behaviour wasn't dictated by grant funding, people could discuss ideas and co-operate on a much wider basis.

In particular, if you look at research where computer software is developed, there are plenty of groups that write papers but do not publish their software at all. You can probably get a copy for your own research use, if you ask nicely, but this is very far and very inefficient compared to true open source development, where everyone shares the same version control system.

Good morning, Captain.

[AtariAmarok]

Captain Obvious! So nice of you to join us! I'm sure that no-one else on Slashdot had ANY IDEA that this came "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"!

Re:Good morning, Captain.

[Haydn Fenton]

Quick!!1!!1one!! Shut up and reply with any HHGG refernece you can for super-uber-giga-mad mod points!

42. So long and thanks for all the fish. NASA doesn't stand a whelks chance in a supernova. They're almost, but not completely, entirely too big to deal with nanotech. I'm sure nanotech will be mostly harmless.

Re:Good morning, Captain.

[AtariAmarok]

"I wonder how long till Gates' wallet collapses in on itself and forms a black hole swallowing the entire universe? "

If it does, look for the sperm whale to materialize out of the vortex and begin its plummet to the ground.

nanotech reference from 1919

[johnrpenner]

>> spoken in 1919:

At the present time the Earth is going through its Fourth Round, and
this is the mineral. During this time it is the task of mankind to work
upon the mineral kingdom... We are now in the midst of this activity,
and in the course of the next epochs, THE EARTH WILL HAVE TO BECOME
COMPLETELY TRANSFORMED, SO THAT EVENTUALLY THERE WILL BE
NO SINGLE ATOM ON THE EARTH THAT HAS NOT BEEN WORKED ON BY MAN.
In earlier times these atoms became more and more solidified; now however
they are becoming increasingly separated. Radio-activity did not exist in
earlier times and could not therefore be discovered. It has only existed
for a few thousand years, because now the atoms split up more and more.

(Foundations of Esotericism, Oct.5-1905, Rudolf Steiner Press, pp.66-67)

Not flamebait - NASA just pulling more pork

[Anonymous Coward]

We already have NIST, DoD, Sandia, etc doing nano research. NASA's mandate is space and aerospace. What next? FDA nano funding? How about the Dept of the Interior? What some govt pork? Just say nano!

NASA's Vision - Autonomous NanoTechnology Swarm

[jamrock]

NASA's support for nanotech R and D is not surprising, given their concepts for the future of space exploration. A cornerstone of this new initiative depends completely on nanotechnology [or more properly molecular engineering] namely ANTS, the Autonomous NanoTechnology Swarm. NASA's ANTS site has very nice overviews and movies of the concepts and potential missions, in particular PAM, the Prospecting Asteroid Mission.

Briefly, PAM envisions spacecraft in the shape of a cube with a 10 cm edge, each with a mass of 1 kg. Constructed mainly of carbon nanotubes in autonomous space-based factories, a thousand are assembled into a cube with a 1 m edge and launched from the Lagrange points on a 2 1/2 year journey to the asteroid belt. Each 1 m cube separates into its component sub-cubes, each of which deploys a solar sail. The 1,000-strong swarm separates into subswarms, each of which seeks out and surveys a single asteroid. All data collected during the survey is entrusted to a single cube, which then returns to earth for recovery, while the remaining members of the subswarm move on to another target and repeat the process. Fascinating QuickTime movies are available on the site.

Re:NASA's Vision - Autonomous NanoTechnology Swarm

[Master of Transhuman]

"All data collected during the survey is entrusted to a single cube"

Which unfortunately is running Windows which BSODs upon hitting Earth's atmosphere, rendering the entire project worthless.

Typical of NASA's reliance on single points of failure (or multiple points like fucking foam?)

If you swarm outward, why not swarm inward and replicate the data so you're sure it gets back?

And I don't even have a college degree and I can figure out that much.

I guess that's why NASA is now developing a reputation for failure instead of success - too many geeks, not enough common sense.

motivation?

[Tablizer]

Maybe they are hoping nobody will notice if 7 micro-astronauts die.

Hurray!

[indytx]

With NASA on the beat, think about how quickly nanotech will advance! Look at all they've done for manned space flight in the last 20 years!

"Quick! Everyone! Hide!"

Running Windows? Where does it say that?

[jamrock]

"All data collected during the survey is entrusted to a single cube" Which unfortunately is running Windows which BSODs upon hitting Earth's atmosphere, rendering the entire project worthless.

Running Windows? Where on the site does it say that? Also, where does it say that a 10cm cube is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere? According to the ANTS Enabling Technologies page, one of the enabling technologies for ANTS consists of

"Intelligent Systems areas requiring development include advanced autonomous systems, multi-agent systems, as well as high performance computing. We are currently involved in the ST-8 COTS high performance computing project, and using developments in that area to perform multi-agent system simulations for ANTS on a beowulf cluster." [Emphasis mine].

The ANTS project is under the purview of the Goddard Space Flight Center, which is "recognized as the home of the Beowulf Project". From what I could glean, simulations are being conducted on Beowulf clusters running Linux, and nowhere have I seen any indication that NASA would entrust mission-critical spaceflight to Windows. Never mind the fact that the earliest projected date for the ANTS project is 2010. Unless NASA knows something about the capabilities of Windows 5 years from now, there is no evidence that they're even considering using Windows. You sir, are a troll.

Re:Running Windows? Where does it say that?

[Master of Transhuman]

Don't take my post so literally.

I never said it WAS running Windows, I said it probably would be just because doing something dumb like that would be par for the course with NASA.

I mean, JPL lost a Mars probe because some idiot didn't convert metric measurements (supposedly) and nobody caught it. How dumb was that?

Podcast from NASA Nano-dude.

[Matt_Joyce]

http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail585.htm l

too late...

[wikdwarlock]

The "nano" buzzword phase has already started. The new Hummers are promoted on billboards as "Nano Hummer". This boat sailed a few years ago.

Sorry...

[jamrock]

Didn't mean to be so snippy. I do take your point about single points of failure, and I agree, it's amazing that a frightfully expensive undertaking could be jeopardized by a single boneheaded mistake. Sorry about the troll comment.

Re:Sorry...

[Master of Transhuman]

No problem. I've had worse troll comments than yours here, heh, heh! I don't even count yours as a troll - you'd have to have meant it that way to be a troll.

Tax funded research

[iendedi]

Any research that is funded by tax revenue should be patented and licensed free of charge to all taxpayers. This is elementary, but unfortunately idealistic and impossible to realize in the face of overpowering greed and corruption.