NASA Seeks Geniuses and Visionaries

Dotnaught writes "The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts has put out a call for 'revolutionary ideas to advance the Vision for Space Exploration.' Would-be visionaries are invited to submit their ideas by February 13, 2006, as explained in this Call for Proposals. Phase 1 grants range from $50K to $75K. Phase 2 grants go up to $400K. Sample grand visions include how to create a 'self-sustaining, human presence throughout the solar system' and 'truly autonomous robotic operations for exploration and habitation.'" If any Slash users end up with the grants, we call dibs on interviews.

Comments

My idea

[SpaceAdmiral]

I think there should be a space shuttle that doesn't use foam.

Re:My idea

[SpaceAdmiral]

Haha. Whoops, I messed up my joke. I suppose it's the launchers that use foam.

Re:My idea

[mboverload]

You mean the main external tank (the big rust colored thing). It stores liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. They cool them down into a liquid state and put them in the tank (which fuels the actual Shuttle engines during launch). The foam is there to try and keep the cold in (actually keep the heat out). However, the foam eventually "freezes" and ice also forms on the outside of the tank. That's what leads to all these problems.

They used to have a much better foam but due to some enviromental concerns they had to stop using it.

Re:My idea

[Mr. Slippery]

They used to have a much better foam but due to some enviromental concerns they had to stop using it.

That's a popular meme spread by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, but the truth is the Columbia Accident Investigation Board found that the section of foam that broke off and damaged Columbia had been made with freon.

This idea that the foam was just fine before we made it freon-free is just more bullshit from the "loot and pollute" segment of the far right. Shame on them for trying to use the deaths of the Columbia crew to prop up their anti-ecology agenda.

Re:My idea

[mboverload]

Thank you for the correction! Doh =(

Re:My idea

[Tablizer]

But unshaven astronauts is bad for PR.

Re:My idea

[DigiShaman]

Shame on you for putting the blame on Rush Limbaugh. He has nothing to do with this. And I quote from Space.com...

"NASA has said that the freon-free application method resulted in foam that initially did not adhere to the tank as well, but changes were later made to strengthen the bond of the environmentally friendly foam."
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_foam_f t_030506.html

Re:My idea

[moro_666]

Exactly, no shuttles.

Instead we should get all the boxes that we have manufacured in this world and pile them up, by the end, we'll have a mountain large enough that it's tip will reach space. So we can just drive there on usual cars once we get the boxes covered with tarmac.

Idea number 2 would be using a cannon to shoot us into space but someone said it could have it's downsides, so i stick with the boxes ...

Re:My idea

[Vellmont]

Sorry, but Rush Limbaugh is 100% guilty in promoting this crap. Here's a link to his actual crappy and massively missinformed quote. http://mediamatters.org/items/200508090007

His quote came from Aug 3, 2005. The article you quoted came from May 6, 2003.

Just goes to show if Rush says it, it's probbably wrong.

Re:My idea

[DigiShaman]

He promoted a theory not a fact. So what if he promoted it, maybe it's true. I mean, this theory was never his to begin but that of NASA. I guess if he promotes a plausible theory, everything else he talks about is wrong? Please, your so filled with bitterness about this guy. Talk about you taking an unobjective point of view....

Re:My idea

[Vellmont]

He's listened to by millions of idiots that believe every word he says. If the man had any integrity he would actually check things out before he starts espousing them. As for "maybe it's true" it's not true at all, and no one but miss-informed people thought it was when he said it. If you had bothered to read the article that was published more than 2 years before Rush made his miss-informed statement you might have realized that.

It's not as if this is the first thing Rush has said that's complete crap and was easily verifiable as complete crap. Anyone that actually cares about finding truth should be completely disgusted with this purveyor of lies.

Re:My idea

[Anonymous Coward]

We need an anti particle reactor that creates an anti-gravity field around the ship. The rare isotopes would be mined from asteroids. A saucer ship could be built with its own gravity that could travel at near speed of light without any resistance.

Re:My idea

[Ortega-Starfire]

He's listened to by millions of idiots that believe every word he says. If the man had any integrity he would actually check things out before he starts espousing them. As for "maybe it's true" it's not true at all, and no one but miss-informed people thought it was when he said it. If you had bothered to read the article that was published more than 2 years before Rush made his miss-informed statement you might have realized that. It's not as if this is the first thing Rush has said that's complete crap and was easily verifiable as complete crap. Anyone that actually cares about finding truth should be completely disgusted with this purveyor of lies.

Hmm, I read your post, now read it again, but substitute Rush for Slashdot. Consider all the dupes, mistakes, etc, and you realize... Gee, He is human. Just like the slash editors. The size of the audience does not mean check your data better, at least if you consider the size of the slashdot audience. Anyhow, his talent is on loan from God. Maybe He needed it back on that day.

Yes, this is a joke.

Anywho, on topic, I personally would like to see a moonbase. My parents got to see man land on the moon, I'd like to see people living there.

Re:My idea

[Vellmont]

Consider all the dupes, mistakes, etc, and you realize... Gee, He is human. Just like the slash editors.

And this is an excuse for making massive blunders day after day? The difference between Rush Limbaugh and Slashdot is that Slashdot is self-correcting and often has good information. Rush Limbaugh isn't self correcting and almost never has good information.

The size of the audience does not mean check your data better

It should. Larger audience means more money, so more money to actually hire people to check facts. It's pretty sad when a syndicated talk show gets facts wrong more often than a single person armed with Google.

Re:My idea

[DigiShaman]

It's pretty sad when a syndicated talk show gets facts wrong more often than a single person armed with Google.

Opposed to what?....Air America? *laughing*

And this is an excuse for making massive blunders day after day? The difference between Rush Limbaugh and Slashdot is that Slashdot is self-correcting and often has good information. Rush Limbaugh isn't self correcting and almost never has good information.

Unless you can prove it, STFU. Otherwise, your statements are slanderous.

Re:My idea

[Vellmont]

Unless you can prove it, STFU. Otherwise, your statements are slanderous.

Please sue my Rush Limbaugh (hope hope hope) PLEASE!!!!

Re:My idea

[NitsujTPU]

I'm not going to chime in on Rush, since it's been years since I've heard one of his shows (so, I haven't a clue), however, more often than not, totally misinformed posts get modded up.

I've read several stories on areas that I actively research. Generally the best modded posts are ones that were obviously written by someone with no knowledge of the topic. I recall reading one story on natural language processing, where a top-modded post indicated that he would be impressed when systems could properly parse out a sentence gramatically.

We do that, they're called graph parsers and they work quite well. There are a number of natural language tasks that we don't do so well yet, but that's not one of them. That's one of the ones were researchers generally trust the output of the system.

Re:My idea

[node 3]

Shame on you for putting the blame on Rush Limbaugh. He has nothing to do with this.

What did Mr. Slippery say? "That's a popular meme spread by the likes of Rush Limbaugh"

He blamed Limbaugh for being one of the people who spread that popular (but false) meme.

In Limbaugh's own words (shame on *you* for not even reading the linked site, wherein the words are written):

"So maybe -- a lot of people are beginning to think that the banning of Freon actually caused the shuttle accident, the Columbia shuttle accident, two flights ago. And I'm inclined to believe it when I hear this."

And your space.com quote? It doesn't contradict what anyone was saying. The well-annotated Media Matters report clearly points out that the foam that damaged Columbia was applied/created using freon.

In other words, the EPA regulations (which NASA could legally ignore anyway) did *not* cause the destruction of Columbia. Shame on you for ignoring the facts in order to support an agenda which contradicts reality.

Re:My idea

[Mr. Slippery]

He promoted a theory not a fact. So what if he promoted it, maybe it's true.

Somebody hand me my clue stick. Bam! Bam ! Bam! THE FOAM THAT FELL OFF OF THE COLUMBIA ET WAS MADE WITH FREON. Bam! Bam! Bam!

Rush's "theory" also involves the idea that freon somehow makes the foam stick to the tank: "They had to use something else to cause the foam to bond to the fuel tank, and it was not nearly as good as Freon was. And that's why the chunks started coming loose."

The BS he spouted was not only never NASA's theory about the cause, but is not grounded in reality.

I mean, this theory was never his to begin but that of NASA.

No. Actually read the fine space.com article you linked to above. NASA had a list of concerns in 2000, years before the Columbia disaster. The list included problems with the new foam, that have since been fixed. TFA does not say that the freon-free nature of the foam was a theory in the Columbia disaster, just that it was on this list of concerns.

Re:My idea

[node 3]

The point is, is that Rush and his type cling to whatever meager possibilities exist that might remotely support his agenda. That makes him intellectually unreliable.

The problem isn't that he's wrong, per se, but that his methods are exceedingly error-prone.

Now that Media Matters has pointed out his error, do you think he'll make any effort to correct the notion he put forth? Do you think his original bias is even rational to begin with? He's clearly attempting to make the case that the EPA kills more people than it would had it not existed, but even assuming the false notion that the EPA is the cause of the Columbia disaster, how many lives throughout the history of the EPA have been saved due to cleaner air and water than we would have had without the EPA? How many cancers, crippling illnesses, dangerous accidental (but inevitable) spills, fires, etc, have seen fewer casualties than otherwise would have occurred?

Don't excuse Rush from personal responsibility, like so many do. If you agree with him politically, at least have the honesty to face the facts of your political views, such as the resulting bad science, the fact that you think it's OK to endanger disinterested third parties' lives for economic expediency, and so on.

Re:My idea

[DigiShaman]

The well-annotated Media Matters report clearly points out that the foam that damaged Columbia was applied/created using freon.

Clearly, Media Matters or NewsMax is lying here (or totally miss informed). According NewsMax (admittedly right-wing biased) in this report I quote. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/7/28/93055 .shtml

"In a 1997 report, NASA mechanical systems engineer Greg Katnik "noted that the 1997 mission, STS-87, was the first to use a new method of 'foaming' the tanks, one designed to address NASA's goal of using environmentally friendly products. The shift came as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was ordering many industries to phase out the use of Freon, an aerosol propellant linked to ozone depletion and global warming," the Inquirer said

I serously doubt that NASA just happend to use freon when foaming the tank for STS-107 and not one mission before and after.

Re:My idea

[DigiShaman]

As stated in my post here, I suspect your source "Media Matters" is full of it.

PS. Your clue stick is officially null and invalid.

Re:My idea

[Mortlath]

So, another tower of Babel? We all know how the last one turned out.

Re:My idea

[DoctorBit]

Please, your so filled with bitterness about this guy.

Suspicion, not bitterness.

Re:My idea

[Markus Landgren]

You really don't get it, do you?

Since they started using freon-free foam every ET, including Columbia's, has been using different kinds of foam for different parts of the tank. With and without freon, respecively. The piece that killed the astronauts was using freon.

Re:My idea

[mbrother]

Al Franken regularly points out Rush Limbaugh lies/errors on his show, and issues corrections when he makes mistakes himself. Limbaugh does make regular, clear, signficant errors of fact on a regular basis and rarely if ever corrects himself. Limbaugh is particularly bad when it comes to environmental science, going back years and years. Have whatever ideology you want, but you're fighting a losing battle if your information comes from Limbaugh.

Re:My idea

[cheekyboy]

Its all PR stunts, that amount of freon is insignificant to the 1000 billion tonnes of coal being burned yearly by USA to make power, that itself spews PURE uranium atoms into the air that we all intake, that otherwise would not be there.

If the greenies and eco dudes had a clue they would promote safe pebble based nuke plants, concentrated waste is better than 1/2 the planet soaking up waste.

Re:My idea

[SpaceCracker]

The Chineese are working on a version of this - they are stacking people one on top of the other. The only problem is that the bicycle ride up will be a bit bumpy. They will not apply to the NASA grant, since foriners are prohibited from participating.

Re:My idea

[kurtu5]

Well I think the above is definitively flamebait. Perhaps if your argument had less ad homenim and more substance you would have not received the rating. I would really like to know who taught you to speak like you do? Why choose all these colorful adjectives and yet offer no substance? It reminds me of the "miserable failure" in IRAQ argument. "The war in IRAQ has been a miserable failure, therefore its a failure" Wel, I guess I better shutup before I start using to much ad homenim myself.

Re:My idea

[Vellmont]

Well I think the above is definitively flamebait.

Ahh.. so you're the person who thinks any post with any edge to it whatsover is "flamebait". Thanks for taking us down to the level of milquetoast.

As for the ad hominem attacks, you act as if an attack on someones integrity and truthfullness isn't something that matters. It's not an argument of logic, but one of reputation. That is:

1. Person X makes claim Y
2. Person X is a known lier and is almost always wrong.
3. Ignore whatever Person X has to say.

The problem is people don't ignore what Rush Limbaugh has to say, and in fact think has has an ounce of credibility. Pointing out Rush's lack of credibility is a completely valid point.

Re:My idea

[Vellmont]

I read highly rated posts all the time that I know to be completely false. 9 times out of 10 someone replies later with a correction to things that are wrong. It's not perfect of course, and more specialized areas of knowledge don't get corrected. It's much harder to fake things on the internet with discussion groups. There's just too much freedom to find new information.

This never happens with Rush Limbaugh though. There's really no self correction as anyone expressing disent it filtered out by his lackeys working the call in phones.

Re:My idea

[kurtu5]

Yeah keep ignoring logic. That's a great start. Lets judge things on what reputation says instead of logic.

First, you can't simply claim #2 above and have others accept it. Simply saying it doesn't make it true. You need proof. BTW it is not a single statement, but a composite one.

Now accumulating all the data may be difficult. To do it right, one would have to first determine a level of measurement. For example, if Rush says its" 11pm" when it is actually "11:01pm", I wouldn't hold this as much as a transgression as "Bill Clinton is a partisan alien from the planet Omnicron Persia 2". So once you have a threshold for what is and is not important to measure as accurate, then you would have to perform a count of times right versus times wrong.

I have not heard Al Franken's show (nor have I listened to more than 3 hours of Rush my entire life), but if slashdotters are to compare the two, then both must be held up to the same criteria.

Re:My idea

[Vellmont]

Yeah keep ignoring logic. That's a great start. Lets judge things on what reputation says instead of logic.

You still don't get it. I'm not talking about if something is true or not, but if you should believe someone. If someone consistently gives you bad information, just ignore what they have to say as it's about as valid as a random number generator as far as truth goes. If I wrote a program that strung together random phrases to create "facts", would you give it any credibility? No, you'd ignore it. This is what you should do with anything Rush Limbaugh says. Unforunately a significant percentage of the populace doesn't ignore this human random phrase generator, so other people have to track down references that prove him wrong. I say skip the middle man and ignore this fool.

For example, if Rush says its" 11pm" when it is actually "11:01pm"

Rush Limbaugh doesn't merely state things that are imprecise, he makes statements that are flat out wrong. Sorry if you can't see that, but it's a fact.

I don't know why you're mentioning Al Franken. He's irrelevant to this discussion. Slashdotters, as I've said previously self correct. If you have a problem with that statement, address it. Ignoring it only makes you sound ignorant.

Re:My idea

[kurtu5]

"...you'd ignore it. This is what you should do with anything Rush Limbaugh says. Unforunately a significant percentage of the populace doesn't ignore this human random phrase generator, so other people have to track down references that prove him wrong. I say skip the middle man and ignore this fool."

I guess my main reason for taking time to initially post was to address the a priori characterization of Limbaugh with nothing more than adjectives. To date, and perhaps due to my absence of diligence, I have not hear nor read anything that impugn him aside from ad homenim. Your insistence above that he is a "random phrase generator", a "middle man"(in the pejorative sense it take it) and finaly a "fool", does nothing to assuage me from this conclusion.

"Rush Limbaugh doesn't merely state things that are imprecise, he makes statements that are flat out wrong. Sorry if you can't see that, but it's a fact."

So was he flat out wrong when he said, and I quote from the audio on Mediamatters, "...there is a, uh a theory going around that EPA rules actually may have cause the Columbia disaster?"

I see nothing false with this. There was, in fact, a theory going around. The fact that the theory was wrong does not make him a liar. Perhaps his biggest fault in this musing with a caller, was not to ask himself if, in fact, the Columbia orbiter's external tank used the foam in question. Its not like he solicited this call, he may have taken the opportunity the put forth the theory, but he never concluded it was fact.

Now you may say he is weaseling around by using words like "theory" and "may", but the lack of vocabulary skills by listeners, does not make him a liar.

"I don't know why you're mentioning Al Franken. He's irrelevant to this discussion. Slashdotters, as I've said previously self correct. If you have a problem with that statement, address it. Ignoring it only makes you sound ignorant."

Since slashdot posts are read by all, I figured I would obliquely repsond to them, but perhaps its bad form. While not addressing you directly, I was hoping that those who elevate Franken and diminish Limbaugh, would see that parity is required to compare both of them. Albeit, its a hopeless cause. Hmm, I have also never doubted that intelligent slashdotters would not update thier panmemes based upon cogent and rational information, so I am not quite sure why you bring that up.

Re:My idea

[kurtu5]

"The problem isn't that he's wrong, per se, but that his methods are exceedingly error-prone."

Well, you may find this funny from reading my above posts, but I agree.

Rush, not questioning the unknowns of the theory seems to idicate that his method of consideration of theories is indeed error prone.

He's clearly attempting to make the case that the EPA kills more people than it would had it not existed, but even assuming the false notion that the EPA is the cause of the Columbia disaster, how many lives throughout the history of the EPA have been saved due to cleaner air and water than we would have had without the EPA?

This is becoming very offtopic and very archetypically slashdot, but this is also a very good question. As a unabashed Libertarian(call me if you wanna know which sect.), I reason that the EPA has not protected as many as an unfettered free market could. IMHO, the EPA will provide protection only up to a specific level and then flatten out. In a free market, there would not exist government caps on class action lawsuits. Juries who award large fiscal penalties to companies that maim, kill or injure otherwise healthy persons would be a great incentive for an insured company to chooses to be clean so their premiums are affordable. Companies that pollute and are found to have caused injury will not last. Of course, all this requires is that the population asserts thier rights and has legal recourse for resolving the violation of these rights. It would be a more complex world and numerous third party companies would have to fill the gaps. To bad for unemployment.

/In short a Libertarian utopia. So much for dreams.

Re:My idea

[Mr. Slippery]

Its all PR stunts, that amount of freon is insignificant to the 1000 billion tonnes of coal being burned yearly by USA to make power, that itself spews PURE uranium atoms into the air that we all intake, that otherwise would not be there.

Uh, freon fucks with the ozone layer. CO2 and uranium contamination from coal-fired plants is a completely different problem. (And all atoms are PURE, it's not like a uranium atom could be contaminated with carbon or something...)

If the greenies and eco dudes had a clue they would promote safe pebble based nuke plants

I thought pebble-bed reactors were an interesting idea. Too bad they haven't actually proven to be safe.

Fission is a non-solution, inherently confounded by security, fuel availability, and pollution issues. Only fusion - including making good use of that big fusion reactor just 93,000,000 miles away - is a viable long-term solution.

Re:My idea

[DigiShaman]

This never happens with Rush Limbaugh though. There's really no self correction as anyone expressing disent it filtered out by his lackeys working the call in phones.

Sounds like you've got a mission calling you. If you really want to "correct" anything Rush Limbaugh has been wrong or miss informed about, may I suggest you create a website and provide a transcript. Along with the transcript, break it and provide a rebuttal for all to read AND comment on.

Just one problem though. This would actually require you to listen to his program. Given your utter disdain of the guy, I doubt you can make it this far. Of course, I've given you the challenge to prove how wrong he is. Care to run with it?

Almost Frist Post!

[TheBoostedBrain]

What about, cleaning space trash?

Re:Almost Frist Post!

[mboverload]

Hate Trash Disasters? DON'T GET MAD. GET GLAD®. GLAD® Space Trash Bags help you avoid space trash disasters because they are the only trash bags with 3-ply strength. Clean up low earth orbit quickly and move on to other things. Handling space garbage has never been so easy.

Re:Almost Frist Post!

[Tablizer]

What about, cleaning space trash?

Hey, no need to make it racial. So what if Buzz drank a little every now and then.

Re:Almost Frist Post!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you implying that if you win the grant, you promise to hire Bill Frist's campaign aides to do unaccountably expensive consulting work?

You can take my idea and run with it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Genetically modify humans for space travel. Characteristics include low gravity condition and extended life DNA programming. As soon as I get off of this LSD trip I will try to submit it.

Re:You can take my idea and run with it!

[Inspector Lopez]

For an nice version of this idea in the SciFi lit, try "Man Plus" by Fred Pohl, which in particular features exploration of Mars.

Re:You can take my idea and run with it!

[jthughey]

How dare you attempt to go against god's form of man! You ousters always have been and always will be a problem. Not until every one of you is gone will the church truly be able to guide its flock. And you and your time travelling messiah can do nothing to stop us. Not until every man woman and child has a crucifix on his or her chest will we stop!

Re:You can take my idea and run with it!

[Tablizer]

Genetically modify humans for space travel.

"Sorry bub, but your flight has been cancelled. New prez. Good luck with finding a date who appreciates your 4 arms. But if you do, you have an advantage in the bra unhook thing."

Re:You can take my idea and run with it!

[ThreeE]

Not until every man woman and child has a crucifix on his or her chest will we stop!

Is that you Pope Julius? How's the Pax doing?

Re:You can take my idea and run with it!

[RM6f9]

Spider Robinson will get a grant to pursue making "StarDance", "StarSeed", and "StarMind" *real*??? Do you appreciate the gap between such an awesome dream and knowing that when I "wake" I'll be at work posting on /.?

Re:You can take my idea and run with it!

[jswalter9]

I've got one better. Wait until computers can house the awarenesses (sp?) of millions of people and send it into deep space to thrive on minimal solar radiation. It's Matrix-like, sure, but it would be controlled by the individuals inside it. If we sent several hundred of them beyond the star system, I'd bet at least a few would last until the galaxy had burned out and gone dark. Maybe by then they'd even figure out how to exist without solar... You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

Re:You can take my idea and run with it!

[meringuoid]

In addition to extended lifespan, I'd be looking into any possibility of reactivating some of the old monkey genes. For a species that plans to live in low or zero gravity and move freely in 3D rather than around a 2D surface, a prehensile tail would be really, really useful - as would more versatile toes. Who needs feet in zero-g? An extra pair of hands, though, would be, well... handy.

Re:You can take my idea and run with it!

[meringuoid]

Good luck with finding a date who appreciates your 4 arms.

Do you have any idea of the possibilities afforded by an extra pair of hands? Stroke here, pinch here, prod here and scratch here, all at once... She'll love you forever.

Been done

[daspriest]

I thought Isaac Asimov had some great visions of possibilities for space exploration, and robotics usage....

Re:Been done

[Anonymous Coward]

Asimov died in 1992, this means from current copyright laws that is ideas cannot be used commercially for another 62 years without serious legal retributions from his estate. Another reason why dying old is bad for the advancement of human civilization.

Grants?

[monkaduck]

And once your ideas get beyond the idea stage, they'll cost way too much money to implement and NASA will lose even more fundage for "wasting" government resources.

Obligatory

[SpinJaunt]

Not exactly rocket science is it? oh..

Re:Obligatory

[Gadgycough]

- it's brain surgery!

Similarity

[kadathseeker]

NASA offering to pay for something they desperatly need? That's the same way we /.ers get sexed. Seriously, if they to do cryogenics (or the like, maybe a la the zombie dogs http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15739502-1376 2,00.html) testing on humans, dibs on first volunteer spot. I'll be back just in time for society, technology, and my high-interest bank account ot get where I want them. Or you will all be dead following some war or catastrophe. Either way, I win.

Re:Similarity

[stonecypher]

Seriously, if they to do cryogenics

Hold on, I'm packing the fridge now.

Re:Similarity

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting sexed doesn't have to cost you any money - in fact, it's easy to do yourself in three easy steps:

1. Take off your clothes
2. Look between your legs
3. Something there? You're probably male
    Nothing there? You're probably female - though since you're on Slashdot this isn't a very likely scenario

Re:Similarity

[ozmanjusri]

1. Take off your clothes

I'm doing this ok so far, but a lot of people in my office are looking and pointing. One woman has vomited in a potplant.

2. Look between your legs

Whoa, look at that! That thing is HUGE!

Maybe I should exercise a bit more. [Shifts beer gut out of the way] Yup, there it is. [Shakes hips] Well, isn't that the cutest thing!

3. Something there? You're probably male

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Of course, the beard, hairy chest and deep voice were good hints, but you can never be too sure. Thanks!

Re:Similarity

[Patermater]

By the time you get back, the technology will have changed to the point where you will basically be considered a retarded individual. You won't fit into society at all so you will be placed in a museum environ so people can gawk at the ancient man. As for your money, good luck having any when you come back. Within that time it will likely have been absorbed by the current govenemnt or society that simply doesn't agree or care what agreeement you made that long ago. Sounds real appealing.

Re:Similarity

[slashname3]

my high-interest bank account

Which bank do you use? High interest bank accounts anymore are those that are giving 1%. Many are less than 1% anymore. Or are you reading interest rates the way you read rulers and claim they say 10 inches.....

Re:Similarity

[Ortega-Starfire]

You forgot 1 step.

4. Profit!

Sorry, I really could not resist.

Re:Similarity

[Wornstrom]

you have pot plants at work?

Re:Similarity

[kadathseeker]

I'll just get some upgrades. Quantum brain, compact fusion reactor, extendo-wang... I'll be better off than I am now.

Who doesn't?

[hahafaha]

The title of this article begs the question: what large organization *doesn't* look for geniuses and visionaries. In general, I think such contests are overreacted about. If you are truly a genius or a visionary you would prove it to NASA in an interview.

Re:Who doesn't?

[lawpoop]

How do you find out if someone is a genius or visionary in the course of an interview? I think a true genius or visionary would come off as a nut, or at least someone who is unable to work in a team, in an interview. It seems to me that the interview process is designed to filter out geniuses and visionaries.

Re:Who doesn't?

[hahafaha]

Well said :-)

Re:Who doesn't?

[the.Ceph]

Do you hear that? It's the sound of someone trying to justify their unemployment.

Re:Who doesn't?

[mboverload]

> what large organization *doesn't* look for geniuses and visionaries.

The RIAA? Do I win?

Re:Who doesn't?

[daigu]

Probably because most jobs that interview don't require geniuses or visionaries. They need people that work.

Ever been to a meeting with someone who thinks their job is to think outside the box? Half of it is sheer undoable mental masturbation. The parts that can be done are generally thought to be the work of someone else. Geniuses and visionaries are a dime a dozen; great ideas are a given. Give me someone that can actually implement their great idea or vision (or can even be bothered to concieve of a process to make the idea tangible) and then we have something to talk about.

Re:Who doesn't?

[cashman73]

The title of this article begs the question: what large organization *doesn't* look for geniuses and visionaries.

Has NASA looked at some of the Google employees yet? I hear they have several geniuses and visionaries working for them. And they're actually doing useful things!! Who would've thunk it?!?!

Re:Who doesn't?

[Ignignot]

You seem to subscribe to the idea that geniuses and visionaries are unable to handle other people, working in a team, or maybe even a workplace environment. While this may be true of people with Aspareger's (sp?) syndrome, it certainly does not need to be the case. And also, what good are geniuses and visionaries if they cannot communicate well enough to get their ideas across and implemented? I'd take someone who can get things done over someone who has good ideas but can't ever make them work.

Re:Who doesn't?

[hahafaha]

Except the problem with this idea is that Google is a magnet for many geniuses and visionaries. You hear of people quiting their jobs and moving to Google all the time (*hrm hrm* Microsoft), but very rarely do you hear of people leaving Google to work for someone else.

Re:Who doesn't?

[lawpoop]

I guess it's a matter of semantics. I would call those people visionary leaders. Because, someone who can lead people through to the completion of a project is, in my mind, primarily a leader. If they have a great vision they are trying to implement, they are a visionary leader.

Re:Who doesn't?

[kurosawdust]

How do you find out if someone is a genius or visionary in the course of an interview? I think a true genius or visionary would come off as a nut, or at least someone who is unable to work in a team, in an interview.

If he jumps on your desk, pulls down his pants, and starts drinking his own pee, he's a nut. If he purifies the pee with a filter he designed himself before he drinks it, he's a genius.

Re:Who doesn't?

[Anakron]

It seems to me that the interview process is designed to filter out geniuses and visionaries.

Sounds fine to me! They'll just use the interviewed rejects..

Re:Who doesn't?

[dascandy]

I can definately say that the process isn't like that with my employer. First solicitation for me and I was hired straight away.

Re:Who doesn't?

[lawpoop]

I agree with you. All I'm saying is that geniuses and visionaries are probably most productive as loners. They really don't belong in organizations.

Re:Who doesn't?

[sjames]

Half of it is sheer undoable mental masturbation.

Those people aren't likely to be Geniuses or visionaries, they are dreamers. While that is PART of being visionary, that's not the whole story. To be a true visionary, they must be able to 'cook' the idea for a while and find some possible way to make it happen. This means knowing a great deal in several fields. That's where genius comes in. The real genius and visionary will take a heap of those undoable idaes and boil it down to a handful that have some chance of happening. Then they'll choose one or two that can be done in the next few years and get to work.

Re:Who doesn't?

[jd_esguerra]

The title of this article begs the question: what large organization *doesn't* look for geniuses and visionaries.

Pretty much any organization that strongly values tradition.

Re:Who doesn't?

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on your atitude . I would say , that you would put that person down enough
where he would not want to work with you or anything related . And if he is a softy it might
bright him down for quite a bit.
You should a part of the good idea and meet him half way and try and help. If
he cannot manage the buiseness aspect of the R&D process then you would come in and help.
Otherwise you are just an asshole!!!!!

Re:Who doesn't?

[rtb61]

Perhaps you might want to consider that geniuses and visionaries think a bit faster than most and find slowing down and working with a group to be extremely trying on the patience and really boring when it is repeated on a regular basis.

Of course they can have fun poisoning meetings by coming up with the correct solutions in the first five minutes and presenting them in such an irritating and condescending fashion that the rest of the group will reject them and then leave the meeting forcing the rest to struggle through a bunch of incorrect solutions until such time as they are forced to accept (quitely and with out acknowledgement) what they know to be the correct solutions (preferable over a period of many weeks and many more meetings, all hopefully without your attendance ;-)). There is no time when a sence of humour is not appropriate.

Besides it is all about focus, focus your resources in the correct direction and your goals will be achieved. Obviously the whole thing about exploring space is really only stuck upon one issue, gravity and overcoming that particular stumbling block should really be the current focus of activity, after all, understand gravity and the resources of this solar system will become available to you.

Re:Who doesn't?

[Ignignot]

Of course they can have fun poisoning meetings by coming up with the correct solutions in the first five minutes and presenting them in such an irritating and condescending fashion that the rest of the group will reject them and then leave the meeting forcing the rest to struggle through a bunch of incorrect solutions until such time as they are forced to accept (quitely and with out acknowledgement) what they know to be the correct solutions (preferable over a period of many weeks and many more meetings, all hopefully without your attendance ;-)). There is no time when a sence of humour is not appropriate.

What you just described is what I would term an "asshole." You would be wasting your own time, other people time, and creating a rift between yourself and the rest of the group, all for the chance to feel smug and say "I told you so." For some reason slashdot seems to always downplay the value of communication, but the fact is no one can do everything on their own. Almost no one can do a significant part of anything on their own. Only by working together effectively can real accomplishments be made. There is nothing more frustrating than working with someone that you know can do so much, but who can't seem to just get things together.

Re:Who doesn't?

[rtb61]

Oddly enough it would seem a lot of people also fail to appreciate how boring and annoying it is wallowing over incorrect solutions over hours, days and weeks becuase people want to pointlessly discuss them to the nth degree i.e. the solution still takes exactly the same amount of time to be agreed upon it just doesn't take up as much of your time, allowing you to make better more productive use of it (not only is it amusing but it is in the companies best interest ;-)). I suppose that would be the difference between working people rather than working with people, don't worry I can understand your point of view and I can also appreciate that you cannot comprehend my mine ;-).

Re:Who doesn't?

[heinousjay]

Geniuses and visionaries are a dime a dozen

Yeah, fuck them! What makes them think they're so intelligent anyway?

Re:Who doesn't?

[a bebop a rebop]

Yes, because you're the genius. wink, wink = hilarity! Seriously, a real genius would be able to work around being an petty asshole... (or at least a real genius wouldn't be working where you do).

Re:Who doesn't?

[heinousjay]

And if he talks you into trying it too, he's one charming bastard to boot.

Re:Who doesn't?

[RageEX]

So by your logic NASA shouldn't hire a Galileo ...

Re:Who doesn't?

[Zentac]

Well, they look for them... but with completely different intentions :x)

Re:Who doesn't?

[rtb61]

Who works, as for your struggles to work around your problems they are your own. Don't insult yourself, If you maintain a better opinion of yourself, you wont need the illusion of genius ;-).

Re:Who doesn't?

[Busy]

And also, what good are geniuses and visionaries if they cannot communicate well enough to get their ideas across and implemented? I'd take someone who can get things done over someone who has good ideas but can't ever make them work.

I agree.

While I'm not going to comment on the level of genius (and modesty) I see in myself, I'd gladly give up 80% of my great ideas if it would cause me to become just 10% more effective and motivated when actually doing something. It doesn't matter how smart you are if it all just stays in your head.

Re:Who doesn't?

[a bebop a rebop]

;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

Good fun for all!

Work on those comprehensibility issues, if you don't mind.

Re:Who doesn't?

[sgt101]

You're not wrong.

I work as a research scientist. I get ideas all the time, every day. Other people I work with mention mind blowing ideas, every day. We all have ideas, ideas are a good thing, but ideas are cheap.

Six months later, one year later, three years later and I read about "my idea" being done by someone.

I used to think I was deluding myself, but I'm forced to keep log books at work, and (cunning as a fox I decided to check a couple of episodes out and) lo and behold; I am not deluding myself.

Here's the kick. Every time I have an episode like this I think "if you were worth the money you are paid, you would have *actually got of your fat pampered arse* and done it."

The prizes and the plaudits go to the do'ers. Doing is hard. Doing is good. Protect your doers. Point at them and tell the ideas men "look : gooooood".

Mind you... easy to say....

The other thing is that I have seen a few true visionaries who have plugged away for years, garnering contempt and approbrium from all (sadly me too) before being proved fundamentally correct and suddenly becoming flavour of the month. The trick is to grow a culture of "do, make, prove, give" and yet make sure that you have a bit of a space for people to go deep and dig out the real gold.

Re:Who doesn't?

[Anonymous Coward]

a true genius or visionary would come off as a nut, or at least someone who is unable to work in a team

My team members speak for me with their work: They are ammonia-based microbes that
grow when exposed to heat, and the byproduct of their energy "eating" is they pass gas
endothermically -- hence doing double duty as a CPU heatsink without the need for fans.

The only reason NASA needs to be involved is the occasional jettison of some into space
(to keep the others inline)

Re:Who doesn't?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed that not every genius has Asperger's Syndrome. To further debunk stereotypes, there are many people with Asperger's Syndrome that are not exceptionally smart.

I did it.

[mboverload]

I figured out how to fit the carbon dioxide filters from the Command Module to the LEM! Hire me!

Re:I did it.

[Zaleov]

I figured out how to make the modules standard so we don't need to use socks, it's genius!

Re:I did it.

[blueturffan]

Actually all Apollo flights after 13 flew with an adapter to use the CM scrubbers in the LEM. No socks necessary post Apollo 13, of course no need to use CM scrubbers in the LEM either.

What?

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

The institute employs a team of experts in science and technology to review proposals. Successful proposals are highly imaginative but grounded in reality

Is NASA administration such a desert of inspiration, so devoid of innovation, that they need to appeal to the general public for ideas? I mean this is a thinly veiled atempt to pick the brains of the many highly intelligent and imaginative sci fi fans out there, and probably have a good laugh in the process. One thing is for sure, if I had any practical ideas about space exploration and its direction (and I'm not saying I don't), I surely wouldn't be passing it on to NASA on the nebulous chance of a "grant".

Beh. Tell 'em to go read a book, and not one of their MBA manuals either...

Re:What?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

I surely wouldn't be passing it on to NASA on the nebulous chance of a "grant". What!?!?!? Doesn't your information want to be free???

Re:What?

[know1]

randal flag...

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you devoid from thinking outside of the box?

NASA merely funds selected individuals for far cheaper than it ever could before. Think about it. Fund a professor with a semi-"out there" concept for a year. If after a year the research shows promise, NASA funds it at phase two.

These are concepts that creative, intelligent people have that would go unfunded by industry since, like you, sees no value in the work.

Thankfully for NIAC, your emptyheadedness and ignorance won't leave us in a tunnel oriented think-tank.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is NASA administration such a desert of inspiration, so devoid of innovation, that they need to appeal to the general public for ideas? I mean this is a thinly veiled atempt to pick the brains of the many highly intelligent and imaginative sci fi fans out there, and probably have a good laugh in the process. One thing is for sure, if I had any practical ideas about space exploration and its direction (and I'm not saying I don't), I surely wouldn't be passing it on to NASA on the nebulous chance of a "grant".

Not only NASA, but most companies and organizations are so deprived of inspiration and talent, that you will find that most people hired are required to perform jobs that an automata could perform better, only if they had the mental capacity to train that automata to do the job... unfortunately that requires inspiration, not only hard work, the very thing they are lacking.

Most people are not geniuses. You can't hire 2 geniuses and put them to work. Geniuses are hard to find, and most probably they won't want to work to achieve your goals. Even if they do, they will not agree easily on how to do it. And if they have a track record of achievements, they will be blocked on their jobs by the underperformers and the underdogs.

This is the sort of thing we were trained for.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an astrophysicist, currently not working in academia. This is the sort of thing we dream of - the opportunity to pitch our ideas to someone who is interested in and understands the value of science.
 
I once had a high tech compnay tell me they "didn't have much call for physics", I didn't have the heart to tell them it was physics than made their computers work and not magic.
 
I know I'll be working on my ideas to submit. Thanks for the chance NASA!

Re:This is the sort of thing we were trained for.

[heinousjay]

You know, physics is what makes everything work, but for the most part, we don't need physicists to tell how to make things, or how to operate them.

Just sayin.

Re:This is the sort of thing we were trained for.

[Doug Merritt]

I once had a high tech compnay tell me they "didn't have much call for physics", I didn't have the heart to tell them it was physics than made their computers work and not magic

I completely sympathize -- to a point. You didn't say whether that was the kind of company that could have taken advantage of basic physics for their business.

If the company were e.g. Intel, they'd be fools to respond that way, but if the company were, oh, BEA, or Microsoft, or Adobe, then the fact that physics makes their computers work would be utterly irrelevant; their business models are many levels of abstraction above physics.

Re:This is the sort of thing we were trained for.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an overly pretentious Phd. in Mathematics.

You do know that mathematics is the foundation of what makes everything work - including physics?

How dare they not hire me!

Re: This is the sort of thing we were trained for.

[Black Parrot]

> I'm an astrophysicist, currently not working in academia. This is the sort of thing we dream of - the opportunity to pitch our ideas to someone who is interested in and understands the value of science.

> I once had a high tech compnay tell me they "didn't have much call for physics", I didn't have the heart to tell them it was physics than made their computers work and not magic.

Be sure to spellcheck your grant application...

Here's some

[hackstraw]

How about space exploration that does not wreck or blow up?

That is a $50k one, not $75k or $400k.

How about either changing the name, or do something with the first 'A' of their name?

Here you go, how about ditching NASA and NSF and joining them?

NASA has turned into a poor version of an employment agency that mismanages contractors at an inflated salaries so that they can dump them easier than dumping a government employee proper. Honestly, this proposal of looking for "Geniuses" and "Visionaries" is similar to NSF grants, but NSF grants pay money. Any scientist or researcher would give NASA a $50k or $75k idea in exchange for a publication. Putting a $50k to $75k open invitation is going to cost much more reading the crap from dumbasses like me and every other dumbass that is looking to get rich off of top prizes from "legalized" gambling from the government.

No, I didn't RTFA. If I were a genius or visionary, I would apply for a job as an imagineer at Disney or a job at Pixar or one of the Lucas spinoff companies. Not for some lottery for a failing government agency.

Whoo

[Da3vid]

I like this. In a funny way, its a step against the No Child Left Behind Act, which I do not support. What this does is allows the best and brightest of America to excel and reach new heights. We should be pushing the best to become better instead of settling in for an easy ride being mediocre. Anyone seen the Incredibles? or read Nietzsche? I think this is a good thing: tapping into potential. The only problem lies in sifting out so many stupid people's ideas, but hey, at least we get our Ubermensch.

-Da3vid-

Re:Whoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but what will you do with his bulge?

Re:Whoo

[stonecypher]

The hell are you talking about? No Child Left Behind is a demographic accounting system to create standards of quality for teachers, so that problem teachers can be refined or removed. Saying "X% of the students must pass" doesn't give the schools incentive to lower the quality of their curriculum, because there's already a 50-year-old mandatory minimum. What that does is say "hey principal, get rid of that screwup chem teacher, or we're getting rid of you.

Standards were raised, not lowered.

Re:Whoo

[Da3vid]

Well, in case you haven't read the act, the goal of the act is to raise the average. The focus is on raising the people at the bottom of the average to become average, and near the end there is a brief section about the gifted students saying "oh yeah, uhm, give them... things, too, whatever." The point is that its nice seeing us push the strong to be stronger instead of dragging the weak to be average. It's really a matter of opinion, but one I happen to appreciate.

-Da3vid-

Re:Whoo

[stonecypher]

"Mandatory minimum curriculum," I meant to say. Whoops.

Re:Whoo

[Anonymous Coward]

"No Child Left Behind is a demographic accounting system to create standards of quality for teachers, so that problem teachers can be refined or removed."

While that may have been the idea behind it, in practice, principals are forcing teachers to pass kids that should have failed. It does not mean the teacher is a bad teacher, it means the child did not care about the class. If the student doesn't do the homework, doesn't study, and still gets to pass and go onto the next grade because of this act, what are they *really* learning? To expect someone else (the goverment) to make life easier for them?

Put capitalism to work.

[headkase]

I think NASA should set up a funding program where they pay people some huge ratio of gold to moon rocks in weight. Then let market forces work and have private enterprise mining the moon to bring home the new gold. And once the moon becomes passe make Mars rocks the new motivator.

Re:Put capitalism to work.

[the_duke_of_hazzard]

Didn't Freeman Dyson have a similar idea?

Re:Put capitalism to work.

[headkase]

*shrug* Probably, there was that TNG episode with Scotty where he was marooned in a transporter buffer on a Dyson Sphere...

Re:Put capitalism to work.

[sgladfelter]

I had the same thought after reading the post. If NASA were to show us space as a commercially viable enterprise then everybody's going to put their best noodlers on the problems. Picture a space station to make X (where X is something you can't get on earth - say, the purest silicon wafers available). The fact that something like that's available would drive a need for it, which would get other people turned on by what else they can make, and voila: enter new age of man.

Re:Put capitalism to work.

[akuma(x86)]

It's not capitalism if the GOVERNMENT puts up money to fund something that the market otherwise would not have bothered with.

The market is ALREADY allocating capital to its most efficient use.

By definition, the government is intervening to redirect that capital (tax dollars) towards ends that the market would not otherwise. There is a built-in inefficieny.

Note: I am not saying this is right or wrong - just that it is.

If we completely eliminated NASA, maybe the market would colonize space faster than the government (over the long run) because instead of the tax dollars going to NASA, they would stay in the economy and be put towards more productive ends - perhaps funding unforseen technologies that would assist space travel... but that is hard to say.

And the surefire way to get a grant is...

[vistic]

...propose something that could also be modified by the military to be used as a weapon or to spy on "terrorists"

(or fellow Americans, judging by Bushs latest statements...)

Re:And the surefire way to get a grant is...

[jd_esguerra]

...propose something that could also be modified by the military to be used as a weapon or to spy on "terrorists"

Isn't that what SBIR's are for?

Re:And the surefire way to get a grant is...

[Anonymous Coward]

...propose something that could also be modified by the military to be used as a weapon

DARPA has been known to be interested in such things, too.

NASA hiring crackpots?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do I sign up?!

Pennies

[Gyorg_Lavode]

They're really throwing out pennies here. It's just a way to throw some money at small companies for the greater good. But likely it won't amount to much. 1 out of 100 they do may be useful.

Re:Pennies

[Bad D.N.A.]

Only in the exploration group would this sound like a good idea.
50K? Are they serious. So they are going to pull together a panel of experts, drag them into downtown DC for a few days, put them up in hotel rooms, pay them for food, cabs, etc...(at a total cost of what, around 2K per person.. given a panel of 10 ... 20K not including salary that also must be paid by someone, usually NASA as well) Then this group sits around and debates the merits of the 100+ proposals they receive. A winner is chosen and gets a check for 50K. The visionaries institution takes their cut (say 50%) and the winner is left with 25K. Take that 25K and spread it out over the 3 or 4 people involved in the proposal and each gets what? Around 8K. And exactly what are you suppose to do with 8K? Well, sounds to me like spend it on writing another proposal (phase 2). And in the end how much was spent on overhead during this process? You guessed it, every single penny.

Free Brainstorming

[EdwinBoyd]

This sounds like a cheap way to get new ideas, not that there's anything wrong with that. I once went to a job interview and one of the questions was "How would you implement a trackerless bittorrent protocol?" I had to laugh and say "If I knew how to do that I sure as hell wouldn't give it away in an interview"

Needless to say I didn't hear from them.

For the armchari quarterbacks

[Belseth]

I read it over. They aren't after pitch ideas but formal proposals. That includes detailed cost projections, translated how the money will be spent. You're applying for a grant not throwing ideas out there to win a prize. If you've never applied for a grant it's a waste of your time and theirs. That said it's amazing they are opening wide for grant proposals.

NASA seeks it?

[merc]

Well who doesn't seek Guinness..mmm.. it's so frothy and yummy, like a meal in every can.

*grumblecakes*

Develop nanotech aggressively

[Master of Transhuman]

I'll take my $400K in small bills, thank you.

This is a PR stunt, I suspect.

Re:Develop nanotech aggressively

[NitsujTPU]

No.

This is not a PR stunt.

Agencies do this all of the time, they just don't normally get FP'd on Slashdot. The people who usually respond to these things are university labs.

For instance, I am a research assistant, and worked under a similar proposal for the development of Artificial Intelligence. My advisor being the contractor under which the work was done.

The work is in multiple phases, with updates to the funding agency (DARPA) every year or so, and the money amounts are synonymous (though, DARPA has a lot more cash).

If you're looking for PR stunts, look at the DARPA Grand Challenge. No money up-front, and $2 million to the winning team out of a field of over 200 teams, with no cash going out the first year.

For DARPA research, those are bargain basement prizes. That said, I took part, and it was a wonderful experience. Perhaps PR stunts aren't so bad.

Re:Develop nanotech aggressively

[Master of Transhuman]

The reason I call it a PR stunt is because asking for open-ended "grand visions" doesn't seem likely to turn up anything new that hasn't been considered before - at least by any number of science fiction writers.

Which means I think the money would be better spent reviewing what HAS been considered by other people and then picking whatever seems most likely to be productive of real breakthroughs in technological capability.

Nanotech obviously fits that category.

I doubt ANYBODY has ANY decent comprehensive concept of "how to expand humans throughout the solar system". That's pure "pie in the sky" unlikely to lead to any specific productive research projects.

I could easily submit a proposal to pursue the development of a decent simulation of human conceptual processing. The benefits of that, even if it failed to produce a true AI, would obviously be enormous in the area of software design and command and control software - which is obviously valuable to NASA.

I question whether that would be worth my time since I would expect the decision makers to be flooded with less useful "visions" a la the above, and the more useful projects to be lost in the noise.

Re:Develop nanotech aggressively

[NitsujTPU]

But I still disagree. The NSF GRFP has an essay that is, "what do you want to research?"

Now, obviously EVERYONE does, it's similar to the personal statement in PhD apps, but more research slanted, and you can be a bit more biased. NASA isn't going to seriously consider anything that puts nothing forward. I'm sure that there is a "put up or shut up" aspect to the app where you at least have to have citations and an explanation that it's a good idea.

That sounds a lot like a standard research proposal to me still.

Re:Develop nanotech aggressively

[Dun Malg]

The reason I call it a PR stunt is because asking for open-ended "grand visions" doesn't seem likely to turn up anything new that hasn't been considered before - at least by any number of science fiction writers.

They're not looking for pie-in-the-sky fantasies, they're requesting grant proposals, complete with timetables, budgets, and similar projections. They will necessarily get mostly serious proposals. The difference between these and previous grants is that NASA isn't soliciting grants for specific things this time. They're not looking for totally new stuff that "hasn't been considered before", but rather for stuff that hasn't been considered by NASA before.

Which means I think the money would be better spent reviewing what HAS been considered by other people and then picking whatever seems most likely to be productive of real breakthroughs in technological capability.

Hellooooo! That's precisely what they're doing.

Nanotech obviously fits that category.

Ya, OK, but I think "magnetism" or maybe "atomics" might yield better results. Seriously, they're not asking for grant proposals on discovering totally new to this planet sciences, like plans for charging manastones on mars, or studying the uses of kryptonite in space rockets. They're just asking for ideas based on regular science that may not have occurred to them.

I doubt ANYBODY has ANY decent comprehensive concept of "how to expand humans throughout the solar system". That's pure "pie in the sky" unlikely to lead to any specific productive research projects.

On what do you base these doubts? Sure, the goal may sound a bit grandiose, but you gotta start somewhere. Nobody is seriously going to submit a grandiose plan to accomplish that goal in one fell swoop of research.

I could easily submit a proposal to pursue the development of a decent simulation of human conceptual processing. The benefits of that, even if it failed to produce a true AI, would obviously be enormous in the area of software design and command and control software - which is obviously valuable to NASA. I question whether that would be worth my time since I would expect the decision makers to be flooded with less useful "visions" a la the above, and the more useful projects to be lost in the noise.

Noise gets weeded out pretty quick. So long as you can present your idea such that you don't sound like a crackpot, you'll stand out beyond the ones that can't. Right there you've probably made it to the top 5%.

Re:Develop nanotech aggressively

[jd_esguerra]

Google SBIR, which is an acronym for Small Business Innovative Research. Pretty standard $$$ amounts, I think. The idea is that the govt has to allocate so much money to SBIR/STTR research, and that "big" companies cannot be the primary investigator. The difference here (though I have not read the article) is that SBIR topics are usually pre-selected, whereas NASA just wants some new ideas.

Re:Develop nanotech aggressively

[Master of Transhuman]

"I doubt ANYBODY has ANY decent comprehensive concept of "how to expand humans throughout the solar system". That's pure "pie in the sky" unlikely to lead to any specific productive research projects.

On what do you base these doubts? Sure, the goal may sound a bit grandiose, but you gotta start somewhere. Nobody is seriously going to submit a grandiose plan to accomplish that goal in one fell swoop of research."

Why did they cite that then? Or was that from the article submitter? If nobody can successfully submit such a plan, why ask for grandiose ideas in the first place? Face it, nobody can possibly have any clear notion, let alone specific plans, for populating the solar system in anything less than the next fifty years. And one would presume NASA has already considered anything that could be considered rational in that arena anyway.

By the way, in case you haven't heard, nanotech IS regular science - in fact, it's more regular engineering than science, although a lot of new science is likely to be discovered in the process of developing it as well.

Perhaps I'm overreacting, I probably should read the details, but I got put off when somebody started talking about NASA looking for "geniuses with plans to populate the solar system." I can't take that stuff seriously. If NASA wants more serious proposals, fine.

OTOH, if they want budgets and time tables and results milestones, they're not likely to get many major breakthroughs that way, either. Major breakthroughs tend not to be budgetable or schedulable unless it's clear from the outset what direction to go in to get them.

I would say any serious work on conceptual processing, for instance, could produce useful results - if not a "breakthrough in AI" - within five years - but I wouldn't bet my life on it. If they want to pay me $50-100K a year for five years to work on that, I'd do it (as long as I own the copyright to the software, heh, heh - got to think of how to drop Billy Boy once I get it done, you know.)

I've Gotten Two...

[Jordin]

Seriously. I've gotten two NIAC phase 1 awards; the final report on one has been cited previously on Slashdot here. The other was for an interstellar propulsion concept; details here

NIAC has put out these calls once or twice a year since the late 90's. It's a cool organization, and I'm not saying that just because they've given me grants -- they've funded lots of really good work in many fields. Now if only NASA proper would follow up on more of it...

Re:I've Gotten Two...

[Lab Wizard]

But do they ever go anywhere? Or does NASA or whoever just sit on them? Why is NASA proposing to go back to Apollo-era technology with its CEV, if not for a lack of ideas?

Re:I've Gotten Two...

[arron_nz]

I actually browsed over your interstellar propulsion idea a while ago while browsing NASA. Great job!

Re:I've Gotten Two...

[Jordin]

Sadly, very few of the NIAC ideas have gone very far beyond NIAC Phase II, mainly because NASA does not have the resources to fund both its current and near term activities and put serious money into developing new technologies. (Heck, they don't have enough even for the current activities.) In a competition for budget between a Shuttle or spacecraft program manager with a launch schedule to meet, and an engineer proposing to develop something that will be really useful in 10 years, it's not hard to guess who wins.... And the resources that are available for R&D are mostly "owned" by well-established program areas like electric propulsion and hypersonics. Now and then a new idea will be adopted into NASA planning -- Zubrin's Mars Direct idea of in-situ propellant manufacture comes to mind -- but it's rare.

As a concept development program, NIAC doesn't expect a high success rate. It's much like venture capitalism -- you fund 20 business plans/ideas, and 15 turn out to be failures; 4 are successful enough to keep going as small businesses/R&D programs, and if you're lucky, one is a Google or a Space Elevator (NIAC's most visible success so far.)

Re:I've Gotten Two...

[Jordin]

Why, thank you!

Out of the box thinking...

[__aaclcg7560]

Q: Why did Captain Kirk pee on the ceiling?

A: To go where no man has gone before.

Honestly, there's a great scene in Apollo 13 where the crew was staring out the Command Module window as the waste tank was sprayed out into the space. NASA needs some great toilet bowl thinkers if they want to succeed.

Re:Out of the box thinking...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they could get a lot of inspiration from the book

Fifty-three More Things to do in Zero Gravity

-AC

Re:Out of the box thinking...

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: What did spock find in the Enterprises' Latrine?

A: The Captains Log.

It's cheaper ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

If they want to have a team of professionals looking at certain ideas, trying to develop something new, they have to pay for a lab, offices, expensive buys that the scientifics will ask for their lab, the rather high salaries they would have to pay to the scientists, plus the salaries of their assistans, AND, when someone has a great idea, and it's put into practice, they will have to give him a grant WAY, WAY, BIGER than the one they are offering now.
This way, they don't spend a cent, and have thousands of people working for free, and each of those persons are paying their own infrastructure. If someone has a good idea, they will just give him a small payment (the payment is small considering what they usually spend in research done in more conventional ways).

Also, there is the press and public image. The NASA needs more money. And they current public image is not really very good. In order to get more money from the government, they need to improve their public image, and they need to get people interested in space exploration. /.ers are crazy for space exploration, but most people out there, after all the circus arround the suposed moon trip, and the government constantly telling them that the only important thing they should be spending money in is in paying the fucking army to "protect" them from "terrorists", people just don't trust the NASA, they think that the NASA is a waste of tax dollars, and are not really exited about space exploration at all.
This is also a way to try to change that, and get people willing to open their wallets again like they did in the 60s.

Re:It's cheaper ...

[pookemon]

Not forgetting that if you have the same people working on the same kinds of problems for extended periods of time they develop a certain way of doing things, and a certain set of "beliefs". Someone outside the loop might have a completely different way of thinking about the problems and might be more likely to come up with a completely revolutionary way of accomplishing a goal. And it might be someone who otherwise has no interest or involvement in space exploration, but who is drawn by the "carrot" offered.

As the saying goes, the worlds best motorbike racer has never ridden a motorbike...

Re:It's cheaper ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Agreed, a human presented with to ideas, both of them new to him, he will tend to accept as true the one more familiar with his previous beleifs, if someone is presented the same problem over and over, he will eventually tend to keep thinking what he allready knows. It's a kind of inertia of the mind. If you are following a logical reasoning, you tend to remain in your current path, and not to diverge into new knowledge, even if, logically both ideas are correct, man will tend to accept the one more familiar to him.
That's why workgroup is important, and why it's important that a man doesn't obsess with his work, and it's important that when you are working on something, from time to time free your mind from your work and think about something else.
This is also the reason of the technicall success of Free Software, millions of people, with different nationalities, historys, academical backgrounds, and skillsets, working on different parts of a system that is later assembled by different groups of people. People don't stall in the same ideas, the new is not rejected by prejudice automatically, etc.

Re:It's cheaper ...

[g-san]

This way, they don't spend a cent, and have thousands of people working for free, and each of those persons are paying their own infrastructure.

Isn't this the joke where every astronaut brings a piece of the space shuttle?

Some festive cheer

[Anonymous Coward]

"If any Slash users end up with the grants, we call dibs on interviews."

Depends how much you're paying, be-hatch.

Oh man, I've got an idea..

[Adult film producer]

Not sure if it'll get past the NASA censors though, I'll try my luck and see what happens.

What about foreigners?

[McPolu]

Is non US people allowed to send proposals?

Re:What about foreigners?

[edwazere]

Only if they is grammatically correct.

Re:What about foreigners?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you think the US get the good ideas, from outside... I mean not American Idols.

Re:What about foreigners?

[McPolu]

Upss sorry, in spanish the word gente, which means "people", is singular :/

Re:What about foreigners?

[Anonymous Coward]

What made you think that the problem was with the word people? How about 'Is' being singular and people plural?

Re:What about foreigners?

[McPolu]

Hum... let me explain:

• In spanish you write: La gente es : Gente => singular, es => singular.
• In proper english you write: People are: People => plural, are => plural
• And, in improper english I wrote: People is. The origin of my mistake should be clear now. Being gente singular in spanish I assumed that "people" should be also singular in english.

Re:What about foreigners?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I could understand: no.
Which means that "genius" in the blurb has a somewhat narrow definition in this case.

Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes it's hard to tell the visionary from the halucinator.

Re:I have a sense of the future.

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell is this a flamebait? Overrated maybe. Mods should get a clue!

Budget cuts?

[ChowRiit]

Is it just me, or does this seem like a way for NASA to avoid paying anyone to come up with these plans for them? Maybe I'm being cynical, but it seems that NASA are trying to outsource their work to mugs who'll do it for free... What's next, paying a few hundred dollars for "help build a space shuttle" holidays in a factory in Taiwan?

Re:Budget cuts?

[filament]

Yes and no. It's a great way to increase the number of brains working for them, but only paying those that come up with the goods. Otherwise they could be paying millions to staff that don't come up with any revolutonary ideas, while the 'visionaries' are out there struggling, their ideas being wasted.
It's kind of similar to putting out a tender for a project. The bidding companies put thousands of dollars and man hours into developing their proposal and finding workable solutions, but only one will win the project.

Allright

[hackstraw]

I'm confused when I get modded a troll or flamebate when I'm being a little pessimistic based on reality and reason.

I guess the egg might be still too wet on NASA's face to bust them for wrecking stuff pretty regularly for the past 6 years or so.

NASA needs changing. I've been in a relationship with a PhD that worked at NASA for quite some time. I've been reading NASA publications like Spinoff since about 1977 or 1978. I've known plenty of people that work at NASA that are nervous every 5 to 7 years because they talk about doing massive center closings. I've been involved with research at NASA for a few years. 2 of my closest coworkers worked at NASA for a total of 20 years or so. In other words, I know a little about the agency, but am not as biased or blinded as a direct employee.

NASA needs to change. Their wrecking stuff is embarrassing. They used to be able to put people on the moon with slide rules and "computers" which were typically women that worked out math by long hand with redundancy and double checking conflicting answers. The Space Shuttle was a failure in every respect except some of it was able to be reused. However, the reuse had an unexpected side effect in that it prohibited progress that kept us using 1970s technology for a long time despite the progress in things like material science, chemistry, physics, CAD, and many, many orders of magnitude of computing progress vs doing calculations with slide rules and pencil and paper. They Space Shuttle was also a failure in that it was way too expensive, its cargo capacity was too small and not expandable.

I dunno.

Re:Allright

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe the National Anal Sex Agency is hopeless. I have a vision to use the energy wasted during sex to power up rockets.

OOOH me me me me me. me me me. me me me me !!!~~

[pupupupupupupupupupu]

111111 11111111111

You stole my idea

[s20451]

... except that I was serious. The human body was not intended for interstellar travel -- we can't hibernate, we need energy in a difficult form to provide in space (food), we need an atmosphere, we are quarrelsome when contained in small spaces for long periods, we don't deal with zero-gee very well, and our 100-year lifespan is far too short. At least some of these problems would be solved with genetic engineering.

In fact you can imagine multiple races of engineered humanoids to fulfil various tasks on the ship. You could have a species of "leaders", one of "workers" to do the menial tasks, one of "engineers" to run the equipment (maybe they could be unusually resistant to radiation), and so on.

Another point is this. I read a survey, published by NASA, of the prospects for interstellar travel using existing and forseeable technology. One conclusion was that sending a ship across the heavens would require the dedicated effort of a large chunk of humanity, and that the required level of committment has thus far only been observed in religious believers. For example, consider that pious tradesmen dedicated their lives to constructing some of the great cathedrals in Europe, with the knowledge that the work would only be completed long after they died. So if I were NASA, I would be seeing what I could learn from the Catholic church.

Re:You stole my idea

[WalksOnDirt]

By the time we are ready to send people to other stars technology will be so advanced that speculating about it now is just entertainment. I like the idea of just sending the essential information and constructing copies of people in place. This is risk free as far as people here is concerned, since I see no reason to destroy the originals.

Re:You stole my idea

[mikiN]

I like the idea of just sending the essential information and constructing copies of people in place.

Fascinating idea, unless you mean sending (dead-listings of) human DNA into space, because some paranoid will protest saying it is just as bad as releasing the source code of some critical piece of software onto an untrusted network: "Just wait a while and the vulnerability exploits will come flying right back at you."

Re:You stole my idea

[russ1337]

Space Cadet: "I've got three arms, and am supposed to be the comms guy; I really just want to play the gutiar. Plus i'm really good at X box".
 
  Reminds me of those poor little russian kids that are 'born to be gymnasts' - no choice.

Re:You stole my idea

[orkysoft]

Alright, so the list is this:

* Start a cult
* Genetically modify and treat people to become Space Marines
* Invent Power Armour and Bolters and other weaponry
* Organize the Great Crusade, expand throughout the galaxy
* Build gigantic cathedrals on planets, then have them shot to ruins by invading Space Orks
* Have half the Space Marines turn towards Chaos
* Fight against the Chaos Space Marines and the Space Orks

Sounds good to me! (I'll be rooting for the Space Orks, though...)

Where do I apply?

[NidStyles]

Exactly the question many of the quacks are going to ask. Well, call me a quack, I want to work in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory though.

Modem thinkers

[Anonymous Coward]

While this may be a challange to modem thinkers,
broadband thinker should have no difficulty with this.

Mod him up!!!

[mu22le]

One conclusion was that sending a ship across the heavens would require the dedicated effort of a large chunk of humanity, and that the required level of committment has thus far only been observed in religious believers. [...] So if I were NASA, I would be seeing what I could learn from the Catholic church.

Man I really think you got it! Try submitting NASA a proposal to start a religion, or maybe they could band together with one of those already existing.

Yeah! A Crusade to the Stars is all we need... (maybe not)

PS
I really think that a good amount of faith and devotion is needed to earn us the stars.

Using Asimov's ideas

[mi]

Actually, NASA can simply license the ideas/patents from his estate and from his employer of several decades -- Boston University.

Re:Using Asimov's ideas

[rolfwind]

The guy had patents?

I think anybody who reads his books and has what it takes to implement said ideas from there shouldn't have to license a patent for anything.....

Do we also go back and pay Italy (or whoever holds the DaVinci estate) for his futuristic musings (such as helocopters, etcetera).

It's a sad world when a sentiment like this is norm.

Re:Using Asimov's ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

...license the ideas/patents

You sir have no idea what a patent is, but probably have a patent for having no ideas.

Re:Using Asimov's ideas

[mi]

The guy had patents?

Possibly. If not, the GP's question is moot.

Do we also go back and pay Italy (or whoever holds the DaVinci estate) for his futuristic musings (such as helocopters, etcetera).

No, any patents on those things (would've) expired long ago.

It's a sad world when a sentiment like this is norm.

Is it because you have no sellable ideas of your own?

Re:Using Asimov's ideas

[rolfwind]

If not, the GP's question is moot.

That (your) post had no question(s).

Is it because you have no sellable ideas of your own?

And when did you stop hitting your wife?

No, it's sad that someone can come up with a relatively generic idea (not implementation) and sit on it, wait for someone to make it reality, and then claim ownership of it.

Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.

Mankind has imagined fantastic things for at least thousands of years, thinking about it (and printing it in a book) is different from an actual implementation.

But perhaps Gene Roddenberry's estate will collect money from space travel for 'patents' or 'ideas' hundreds of years from now. (Congress will pass an "Human Progress Act" extending patents for 500 years in 2008).

Also, is Asimov really the originator of many of those ideas? Much as Orsen Welles was being original with 1984, see Zamyatin.

My proposal...

[bk4u]

"The Effects of Gasoline...on Fire!!"

come on big money, big money, no whammy!

Foreign entities ..not eligible

[koroviev (begemot)]

Participation in these studies is open to all categories of domestic individuals and organizations. Minority and disadvantaged institutions and organizations are encouraged to respond to this CP. Foreign entities at any level of participation are not eligible for funding from the NIAC. This includes proposals from domestic entities that include foreign entity participation.

right.. just when I thought that I might submit 10 genius proposals online.. I guess they'll stay in my head now :)

Some very innovative ideas...

[sseymour1978]

To get up in the space... all you need..
1) Stick some very big rocket engines to the Earth in 45 degree angle and start them. And Wait... And wait..
When earth starts to rotate 10000 times in a second everybody will find themselves in space. Whoala.. new space nation!

2) Pretty much the same approach.. put all astrounauts in safes, and blow the Earth up.

3) Find a comet or big asteroid.. stick rocket to it.. so it changes its path.. Ignite it. Path should be very close to the surface of the Earth, but still impact should not happen. Then stick a very big hook to it. Use this hook when comet fly by to lift all the heavy stuff... and then wait for the next comet..

4) Go to Iraq, find missing rockets.. if they are intercontinetal, attach additional boosters and remove warheads. You have brand new and cheap one man space launchers.

Thanks you.. waiting for all prizes.
What can I buy..
Maclaren F1 for me please!
Oups... Prize is not big enough..

nevermind then..

How about earth ????????

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we stay right here and first to live on this planet before trying to fuck up others.
How about we realise that there is way more to explore here on earth that anyone ever imagined.
How about we solve some simpler or rather harder problems that actualy need solving if we
are going to make it another 5-10 years or so ?
How about slashdot gets their fat asses off coushy chairs and gets their hands dirty ?

i think thats enough screaming for a fiew minutes!
And yes, i am on drugs.

Mars Direct

[sdfad1]

Whatever happened to Robert Zubrin & Co's ideas for bounties & private enterprise (similar idea to the X-prize)? I was inspired by his book The Case for Mars, but haven't read a whole lot in this area since ... a long time ago. The ideas proposed (very well articulated in my opinion) were visionary, but also seemed practical (still useful today for sure), so I have always wondered why this never seemed to be noticed by the "decision makers". Granted, many of the ideas can seem pretty far-out, but there must be something usable!

The Mars plan as set out by Bush, in a slightly different form, had been examined and deemed less practical too. There are lessons to be learnt, but not many are paying attention. Perhaps those who know more in this area can tell me about how realistic his ideas are. I only know of a few (well maybe a lot) dedicated and keen amateurs/professionals who are working towards the dream of Mars colonisation today in this area. Check out the Mars Society site for example.

Regardless, the book (and others by author + friends) is a good and (for me) educational read, and really did set my imaginations (but not hands) a-going.

wth?

[blackomegax]

i envision a world without bullshit.
where's my check?

Obligatory South Park reference

[gijoel]

1.) Expose myself to cosmic radiation and become a super genius.

2.) ????

3.) Profit$$$

CmdrTaco's proposal

[Anonymous Coward]

for outerspace explorations here: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/02/14/143254.shtml ?tid=166

A truly revolutionary propulsion system

[hermango]

The fact is we'll never get anywhere in space. The US Governemnt has a law that dates back to the 1930's which will confiscate any high tech stuff the government deems to be of military significance. So, got your Star Trek Implulse Drive or your Star Trek Warp Drive ready to patent? Too Bad! They'll declare it Top Secret and confiscate it. It'll never see the light of day, except as a weapons delivery system.

Therefore, if you've got a new truly revolutionary propulsion system, do NOT, repeat, DO NOT, attempt to patent it in the US!!! And, I suspect that if you placed it in the public domain they'd arrest you as an "Enemy Combatant," and you'd never be seen again! The net result is no space exploration because we have no space propulsion system other than rockets. Fuck Bush and everybody that stands with him!

Re:A truly revolutionary propulsion system

[jd_esguerra]

Yeah! Damn GW for passing that law way back in the 1930s!

Tool.

budget looking for somewhere to spend

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we just run out of ideas for a minute and save some money?

The Pentagon pulled the same crap. When we quit needing to "fight" the USSR, they came up with the need to spend to prepare for two smaller-scale wars at the same time. Turns out that wasn't enough money for Afghanistan and Iraq and they need an extra $500 billion. Now that opposition to our ineffective foreign adventures is making a humiliating pullout likely, hey! here's the Chinese "threat".

Baaaaa! Fleeced again! There's a deficit hurting this country, folks -- do you think we could cut some techno-pork for a change?

More geniuses??

[OldCrasher]

In English English there is a colloqualism "genius" that means means the exact reverse; "What genius did this!"

With that in mind, do we really think NASA needs more geniuses (genii?) and visionaries? I think they need more people that can roll up their sleeves, get their thumbs out of their posteriors, and get some darned work done. JPL seems the only bastion of sense and progress in this massive faceless beauracracy. The rest of it seems to be stuck on the vexing question of exactly what color should the foam on the shuttle external tank ramp be? And should the diameter of the CEV be more or less than it was in 1968... Aggghhhh!!!!

(Sorry Douglas Adams)

Call me angry? No, I'm just a voiceless tax payer.

Re:More geniuses??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, being the resident err, umm, 'genius' in my household, I was intrigued by this story.
But being a 'comitted' European, I wouldn't dream of supporting NASA. I'd support the ESA.

PS In English, we call English English English. All other forms of English are labeled
something else and are 'lower' forms.
PPS In English, 'comitted' may also be used in reference to persons locked up in an
insane asylum.
PPPS In English, 'lower' may mean beneath.

Mass driver solution to sending up cargo

[Zantetsuken]

Since they waste like what? a couple billion dollars just to deliver food and basic necessities. Why not experiment with the feasibility of making an electrically powered rail gun/mass driver and set the cargo pod (no humans or other life-forms (animals, ect), as they would be crushed in the g forces from acceleration). This would give NASA (or whoever expiremented with it, maybe China or ESA) a permanent external launcher for the cargo pods, meaning that if the pod goes down, you dont lose your engines with it, and instead of using expensive rocket fuel for current generation shuttles, the driver could be connected to its own dedicated nuclear power plant on the ground (the power produced by the plant could be diverted to cities when the driver isn't being used). Then when the cargo pod gets into orbit, the ISS could send out a small rendevous craft (the thrusters wouldn't have to be very powerfull) to retrieve the pod, and of course, you would want to put in an orbit that would cross with the station so ISS crew wouldn't have to go out of their way to get their own supplies.

The ONLY thing I can personally see about this is that
1: The power of the rail gun/mass driver would have to be limited so that it does not crush the entire cargo pod (even without having people and or animals on it, you would still have to worry about the cargo and the pod itself being crushed in the acceleration).
2: It would not solve the problem of still having to use shuttles to send people up, but since most of what NASA does right now is sending food and supplies to the ISS, which could be done remotely through robotics (the only major problem with robotics might be the time lag between sending and receiving of the signals).

All in all, (I know its REALLY bad to refer to video games when you are trying to get people to take you seriously) it would be kinda like the mass driver in the PS2 title from Namco "Ace Combat 5", if any of you have ever played that, it might help you to visualise what I have tried to describe...

Re:Mass driver solution to sending up cargo

[gdamore]

Seems like you could actually use the idea of a particle accelerator to send up pods, and you could probably do it safely for human transport by just making the rail long enough. I don't know exactly what the escape velocity at the surface needs to be, but I'd imagine that a rail of a couple miles would be able to get you up to said velocity without g-forces much different than what the shuttle experiences today. (How *many* miles the track has to be is the question.)

A problem is the shape of the curve because I assume the track isn't going to be 5 miles straight up. So you have a very, very long straight away, with a large 90 degree turn to go from the horizontal to vertical.

Another option is to have a very small inclination, say 20 degrees, but you have to have a higher vecolity to pull it off.

An interesting problem for undergrad physics students: what is the diameter of a turn needed to reach escape velocity at the end of the arc, given the constraints:

1) maximum linear acceleration of 5G
2) maximum centripetal acceleration of 5G
3) escape velocity at end of arc
4) assume any inbound velocity that meets the requirements
5) maybe different arc angles -- 90 degress, 45 degrees, etc. Useful minimum is probably about 10 degrees.

Then if the arc turns out to be quite large, but it is within say tunneling range (perhaps using a mountain face to aid with the ascent), you can go underground to build it.

Imagine that as the pods near their intended orbital velocity they blow some kind of external shell to deploy low energy thrusters.

I'll split the grant money with the parent. (I think there should be two grants, one for the mass accelerator idea, and another one for making it safe for human transport. :-)

Re:Mass driver solution to sending up cargo

[Zantetsuken]

As to the curve towards the end of the rail, as I said, (again I know it's a really bad idea to reference to games when you are trying to get people to take you seriously, but games are the only place I have seen creative enough to display anything like it). BTW as I said before, I have seen the rail design in Namco's Ace Combat 5 (the space-port facility you protect during the cargo launch, but its a rocket sled, not rail-gun) and in Squaresoft's Final Fantasy 8 (the Lunar Gate, where they send you into space, and what they launched the Ragnarok from)

BTW: The part about embedding/tunneling part of the rail into a mountain side is a great idea, really efficient (that way you dont have to build a huge super-structure to support the rail at the launching end)

here's a pic I made real quick to show you (i'm no good at ASCII pix) http://www.geocities.com/xtecha_omega/mass-driver_ rail.gif

And to reinforce what I stated before, yes, it would be economical (more so than just the Shuttle, which has only one use, to send people to space), the nuclear power plant could sell power to cities that need it (except for when you need it to launch cargo from the rail)

Re:Mass driver solution to sending up cargo

[Zantetsuken]

BTW: it's not really all that relevant, except that it was a "launcher" of sorts to be embedded into a mountain side. Back in the 80's or early 90's (not sure) Saddam Hussein was contracting somebody (I think it was a Canadian astrophysist(spelling?)) to build a cannon into a mountain-side to launch nuclear warheads at Israel. However, it wouldn't have been able to re-aim, not to mention the Israeli Air-Force woulda had it in a few minutes. The point is, though, that it was embedded into a mountain-side with the same general curvature of what I've been trying to describe.

Nothing will come of this

[jpardey]

They are too educated stupid to recognize real genius... They will never see that (-1)*(-1) = (-1).

Re:Nothing will come of this

[Anonymous Coward]

amen brother...

Raise your hand if you know how to...

[bjomo]

... use the phrase "begs the question" properly.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html

What they've already funded...

[Goonie]

If you want to know the kind of stuff that NIAC funds, here a list of the reports from studies they've funded before. Perhaps the most famous one to Slashdotters is Bradley Edwards' investigation of the Space Elevator, but there are plenty of other wild ideas, like collecting the miniscule amounts of antimatter that get trapped in the Earth's magnetic field, genetically engineering plants to survive on Mars, and suchlike.

I've been trying to figure out a software engineering project fun and out there enough to get funded by these guys, but nothing springs to mind yet :)

Don't care who usees my idea so long as it is used

[wisebabo]

I don't care who uses my idea as long as it gets used. (If I'm not too lazy I'll submit a proposal anyway but I think this idea shoud be submitted by whoever can write the best proposal.)

Novel method for changing orbit of small planetary body (asteroid/comet).

Abstract: Using a tethered "sling" to release pieces of a small planetary body, an small (inexpensive) payload delivered to a body rotating at a sufficient rate can effectively convert its rotational energy into directed kinetic energy. Tether, which may be attached to said body via cables or netting, can also generate power for its own operations, obviating a need for a large power source. Since only a small fraction of the mass is to released at any one time, problems such as excessive accelration, breakup of body etc. will be avoided. This has numerous applications in asteroid/comet defense, asteroid mining etc.

Main text: Previous proposals for changing the orbital path of a small planetary body have included delivering an explosive charge to said body (typically nuclear) for impact on or near it, moving the body directly through the use of ion drives or mass accelerators or even gravitional attraction by a sufficiently large spacecraft. These ideas unfortantely suffer from various problems such as possibility of fracturing said body or high costs due to large spacecraft or energy sources being sent over interplanetary distances. Still the consequences of a major impact or dire enough so to warrant the consideration of these ideas.

My idea, which I am releasing into the public domain, would be to convert the rotational energy of the small planetary body into directed kinetic energy sufficient to "push" the body on a different orbital path. If done early enough (years? decades?) this small diversion could prevent the body from impacting the earth. The advantage to using my scheme would be that the spacecraft sent to the object could be reasonably small although it would require a mechanism for securely attaching a long (kilometers?) tether to the asteroid via cables or, in the case of a very fragmented body, a large net. The cable would be conducting and may even be self extending using static charges. Small robots would be used for both moving material up and down the cable as well as mining the body for material to be cast into space.

The main design consideration would be the length of the tether (or possibly tower), it must extend beyond the "geo"-sync distance defined by the rotational speed of the body and its gravitational attraction. For some objects no doubt this would require a tether to be impractically long, however recent probes have determined that many(?) bodies rotate fast enough for a tether to be of practical length. ("Practical length" is in reference to NASA experiments in LEO where tethers were extended or attempted to be extended distance of up to tens of kilometers). (Another major impediment would be if the body were tumbling, possibly in a chaotic fashion. I do not know if a tether/tower could be constructed in that scenario). The tether would have a few other important characteristics. It should allow for small robots to travel up and down its length by means of a gripping mechanism (preferably simultaneously on two "sides") and should be conducting. This would allow for the robots to both receive power for their "climb" and to generate power once they've passed the "geo"-sync height. The tether would be kept taught by means of a counterweight placed beyond the "geo"-sync height, presumably at the end of the tether.

The implementation of the system would possibly be as follows. A spacecraft would enter into orbit at the "geo"-sync location around the body. It would then lower the tether to the body while at the same time extending a tether in the opposite direction, keeping the spacecraft at the center of gravity. Once the tether has reached the surface, a robot(s) would climb down and then securely fasten the end. It, or other robot(s) would then breaking up pieces of

hate to reply to my own post but...

[wisebabo]

I had to make an addendum. In case the rotational scheme will not produce enough delta V, the energy generated by the tether could drive some of the other schemes (ion drives, mass drivers) in a more cost efficient manner than solar panels or nuclear reactors.

Revolutionary idea to advance space exploration

[Caspian]

The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts has put out a call for 'revolutionary ideas to advance the Vision for Space Exploration.

Here's a revolutionary idea: Throw more money at NASA than at the DOD.

Re:Revolutionary idea to advance space exploration

[Voltageaav]

They have been cutting back on the DoD budget. http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,83086,00. html That's just the most recent one. http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_cut s_021105,00.html They've been doing a lot more. Don't open your mouth if you don't know what you're talking about.

Re:Revolutionary idea to advance space exploration

[Caspian]

What's NASA's budget for fiscal year 2005?
What's the military's?

Re:Revolutionary idea to advance space exploration

[jswhitten]

NASA: $16.2 billion (0.7% of the total federal budget)
Defense: $416.9 billion (17.4% of total). This does not include more than $100 billion on supplemental spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and military expenditures in departments other than defense (the Department of Energy maintains the nuclear arsenal, for example).

5% of military spending could be shifted to the space program and more than double its budget. We could easily have manned colonies on Mars in less than a decade.

Re:Revolutionary idea to advance space exploration

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a better idea: Throw more money at education than at the DOD.

I Know! I know! Like most U.S. Gov. orgs...

[Anonymous Coward]

... they probably have already driven off most of the capable visionaries because of their un-visionary behaviors.

Now, they are looking for thinkers to support their beuracracy, because, someone has *to pay the bills* by actually working.

And, what exactly do they pay for with their funding if not for visionaries - I know that too! secretaries, buildings, expensive real estate, offices, old military colonels, "rain makers", clueless directors and other employees who "work" the system to their benefit.

Any capable visionaries will be glommed upon like barnacles to a hull.

shit! again I left something out

[wisebabo]

I swear I thought I put in something that the basic idea of a tether has been thought of many times before going back to a Russian visionary around the turn of the century. What is new here is to use the energy of rotation to change the objects orbital path. I'm sorry if anyone thought I was trying to get credit for any part of the "space elevator" idea.

That is if anyone is reading this. ;)

Human presence...

[RM6f9]

Throughout the solar system will be achieved when a sufficient number of humans volunteering for what are essentially one-way trips actually get what we need - I know there are hundreds if not thousands whose names are ahead of mine on lists to go... reliable transport and supplies sufficient to establish colonies are the other factors necessary. Get off the dime NASA.

while we're here throwing ideas

[WormholeFiend]

here's mine... fly up some engines and fuel to attach to the ISS, and convert it into an interplanetary ship

ok, maybe not interplanetary, but at least send it in orbit around the Moon, or to Cruithne

Capital ... lots and lots of capital

[John Muir]

The Shuttle's re-usability is alas a failing in disguise. It provided a golden excuse to keep manned spaceflight pinned back in the 70's/80's. Indeed if the Russians hadn't been so keen on space stations in the later days of the Soviet space programme, there would be no ISS today. (A good or a bad thing?!)

The problem behind space tech development in my view is that it's still tied to government funding. Besides the X-prize the only money spent on this still hideously expensive field is spent by governments ... and their priorities are set by politics, not science.

Get a space race going, US vs China vs an oil rich Russia and we may see some action again. I like to think a Mars mission would become a possibility if China does indeed do a lunar landing for instance. There's nothing like an international pissing contest! It was that after all which landed Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon in 1969.

Private enterprise will eventually drive spaceflight, once we have made the leap out of the initial, chemical rocket age we've been in since the mid 20th century. And I agree that where a market needs a kick start, a subsidy could pay dividends in time. But the problems with that approach is that again, it needs political commitment, and the timeframe and the money involved may prove deeply incompatible with that.

Roll on the rise of a foreign opponent. The US needs challenged into action once again!

Shouldn't it work the other way?

[Hao Wu]

Geniuses and visionaries should be seeking out NASA.

Why is this not happening? Answer that, and you will know why our space program seems so weak.

Dont forget the seat belts, airbags and restraints

[russ1337]

Whatever the means of interstellar travel, make sure there are seat belts. Those cuts and abraisions Kirk was subject to on the star-ship Enterprise would have been avoided with a simple seatbelt.
'Brace for imapct' - [click]

Sand in space: Orbital Denial Techniques.

[Bahumat]

Put sand in space, in orbit both east-west and west-east (and possibly both directions north-south for polar orbits), thus denying competing countries anything more than low earth orbit for years to come. Actually, you'd probably be denying everybody orbit. But then a space elevator becomes a much more valuable concept, at least until it is abraded into dust by the passing sand.

NASA is full of losers

[Anonymous Coward]

Proof enough that NASA is clueless. When these goofballs get money, they can't think of what to spend it on, so they do a pathetic, pointless imitation of the X prize ( a private venture, btw).

NASA doesn't just seek geniuses...

[drgonzo59]

it needs them, considering what has been happening to them recently...

only 50-75k?!

[Anonymous Coward]

A measly 50-75k isn't enough.

This is a publicity stunt, period.

They are offering a small taste now and are dangling a 400k+ carrot on the end of a stick.

NASA

[ralph1]

Man they bother me at home at work everywhere fix this space station
rescue this astronaut tap my brain leave me alone.

Propulsion

[Muhammar]

They better start with developing nuclear propulsion - or they won't get anywhere with maned spacecraft.

Re:Propulsion

[Anonymous Coward]

see the following: JIMO - project prometheus - VASIMR. They've invented interplanetary nuclear propulsion; they just don't want to fund it.

Update

[DigiShaman]

I decided to take a look into the PDF files linked on Media Matters. It turns out they are in fact correct about the new foam not having any effect. As it turns out, the part that broke off as noted was formed using foam made with CFC-11.

"At ET-116 in 2002, the bipod material was changed to BX-265, but ET-93 had been constructed with BX-250. No indication has been found that any specific ET TPS foam change or any combination of historical ET TPS foam changes alone caused the bipod foam loss on STS-107/ET-93."

Ok, so I was wrong. Media Matters had it correct. But it still raises one question. Why did NASA you a mix/match of CFC and HCFC foams? If they moved to HCFC in 1997, why not use it throughout all of the parts on the External Fuel tank?

Re:Update

[Markus Landgren]

You decided to check the facts? That's a no-no when you are trolling and shilling for Rush Limbaugh!

Is the call in Chinese?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe NASA hasn't heard, but we've outsourced our intellectual property years ago... Nothing left here but us morons.

+1 = Insightful

[Slashamatic]

In the early days of NASA (up through the lunar program), it was seen to be where the 'real engineers' went.

Sure, private industry would always pay more, but the space program was where it was at. Engineers/scientists in or contracted to NASA were known for being able to achieve wonders, and they did (for example, look at thie history of the LEM).

Now it is seen to be a bureaucratic mess, more suited for the MBAs.

Here's an idea

[recharged95]

Invent a cheaper bed for sleeping. Those tempurpedics certified by the Space Foundation are ridiculously expensive... I was about to get one until I saw the price.

slow down

[wdebruij]

Sample grand visions include how to create a 'self-sustaining, human presence throughout the solar system' and 'truly autonomous robotic operations for exploration and habitation.'


for 50 to 75K? That's K as in years, I hope.

Ohter NASA grants

[mbrother]

Despite some recent funding issues, NASA still supports space science, not only space exploration/engineering. I've currently got close to $1 million in grants, the largets being $620k over five years to study a particularly interest class of quasars. We've been getting Hubble Space Telescope images that are really spectacularly great.

Sadly you two are onto something.

[Anonymous Coward]

It probably will be some freak that says we need to goto the stars because god told him to that will motivate humanity to actually leave the planet.

Sad, but true.

self-sustaining human presence

[Anonymous Coward]

'self-sustaining, human presence throughout the solar system' can be easily achieved by nuking every planet except the earth to dust.

Figuring out the deal with Gravity

[anandsr]

How about spending some quality Hubble time with large bodies in the Kuiper Belt.
It would be useful to know whether these bodies display MOND effects or not.
Maybe we can figure out the Pioneer Anomaly one way or the other.

Re:Figuring out the deal with Gravity

[SpaceCracker]

Hey, I'd like to get some quality time investigating heavenly bodies wearing nothing but a Kuiper belt and a few rings. Maybe I'll take them for a ride on my Titan...

Plutonium

[Anonymous Coward]

here's a FREE idea for NASA:

How about you DON'T put plutonium fuel on board your
fancy new CASSINI before launching it on January 11th ?
That way, you can save BILLIONS when you don't have to
pay reparations to the poor bastards that get irradiated
when your 1 in 362 chances of explosion eventually happen.

Screw you, NASA.
Investigate Pluto, and piss on Earth on the way out.

We need a Physics breakthrough first.

[master_p]

The Cosmos will never been explored by humans, unless there is a huge breakthrough in Physics that ties Quantum Mechanics with Electrogravitics and uncovers the true nature of the fabrique of spacetime and allows for antigravity and FTL-propulsion systems.

Sending a probe to the solar system is not considered 'space exploration' by SF fans. Space is so huge that, if we make an analogy with a house being Earth and a city being our galaxy, our foot has only been extended to reach 1 nanometre outside of the front door of the house.

Actually, I do not see how it is possible to have any Physics breakthrough like the one described above in our time, because the society needs to be changed first from a grid-driven society to a virtuous one. Too much money go into weapons, and too little time is given to Physics research. Not many people are there that take Physics as a profession or a serious commitment; instead, many people are still driven by acquiring material things.

Considering that we have digital technology only a few decades, it is still too early to talk about real space travel. We can only dream about it. There are still people around the world that are so primitive that they are running around naked all day, praying to unseen gods and godesses discovered in plants and animals. Our computers are so primitive that error reports are still in the form of 'error code 28'. Our programming languages and environments are so primitive that, in order to get a simple form on a secretary's screen, weeks of work is needed.

What does NASA hope to achieve with this initiative? nothing that corresponds to their grandiose words. If there was an Einstein somewhere on Earth, he would already have been discovered by now. I guess NASA people have the same dreams as we SF fans have (i.e. "to boldly go where no one has gone before"), but I seriously doubt that they will find a Zefram Cochrane with this initiative.

Re:We need a Physics breakthrough first.

[SpaceCracker]

> There are still people around the world that are so primitive that they are running around naked all day, praying to unseen gods and godesses discovered in plants and animals... All I can say is that our culture is so primitive that we still accept nudity as sinful or obscene and our technoloy is so primitive that we can still see its artifacts with the naked eye.

Re:We need a Physics breakthrough first.

[master_p]

But I did not refer to being naked from a religious point of view, but from a development point of view. I wanted to show how primitive most parts of the planet are.

Re:We need a Physics breakthrough first.

[SpaceCracker]

I thought of adding a political wisecrack here, but the whole thread on Foam, Freon and Republicans demonstrated the point. ;-)

Evolutionary, not revolutionary

[neuromancer2701]

One of the problems that I see with this. Is that they want people to come up with totally new "Revolutionay" ideas. What if I have a great idea that takes one of their failed projects and improves it. I guess they are just not interested.

The NIAC is specifically NOT interested in concepts that have one or more of the following characteristics: Evolutionary, not revolutionary Duplicative of concepts previously studied by NASA

Re:Too Easy.

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFL... Islamic space program? nothing to worry about....

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

what would space exploration be without HAL?

Shuttle a total failure

[2901]

They Space Shuttle was also a failure in that it was way too expensive, its cargo capacity was too small and not expandable.

Stop and ask yourself "What was the point of the Space Shuttle?". Man had already gone to the moon and stopped going because it was very expensive. The point of the Shuttle was to be cheaper. That was all. Re-useable was a means to an end - be cheaper.

When the Shuttle failed to be cheaper than big dumb rockets it failed utterly; there wasn't any other point to it.

Don't these guys read? The Millennial Project

[Anonymous Coward]

The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps

Stirs the imagination, October 25, 2005
Reviewer: worldstrider (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
Marshall does something in this book that most engineers, scientests and researchers will never do (and most politicians will never have the will to do)--he imagineers the possibilities of how things might be done and casts a vision that is just plausible enough to be worth examining.

When asked to lay out a long term plan, NASA balked and issued a vaporous outline of "some things they might do sometime". When asking the same question of himself, Marshall wrote a book single handedly. Pretty cool for a "layman".

Engineers will obsess over "how" things can be done before they will ever try to do them. Marshall leapfrogs over their shoulders by proposing a goal based on what he wants us to reach before the "experts" can detail every aspect of how they will do it--no doubt to their chagrin. The educated technical experts response to this book is entirely analogous to calling tech support with a specific computer malfunction and then having the "expert" tell you, "That's not possible".

Bah, humbug.

It takes a vision to build a galactic empire--or even to suggest the start of one.

If you are fired by the dream of space exploration and believe that politics and societal malaise are not the reason we are all here, then this is a wonderful book.

I will posit this to all the engineers and technical types out there. Marshall's plan isn't "doable". Then what is your plan?
He at least has one.

The focus should be to first develop a plan and then determine how to achieve it--Marshall does that in a thouroughly enjoyable and exciting way. The US reached the moon with a "dream" that was not possible and the Russians reinvented our military technology in ways that we in the US considered not possible or--more importantly--never considered at all. As to the engineer above who flagged the things in the book "not possible"--hahah.

Sure. Englands minister of science "proved" space travel couldn't be achieved. The US patent office "knew" all the significant inventions that could be invented already had.

Also, Marshall does lightly address societal issues and motivations. In fact, he founded an organization to curry interest in his proposals societally. But who among us can solve all those problems?

I don't think Marshall is an Einstein from a scientific standpoint but he is an educated and a true "renaissance man". A thinker ahead of his time not burdened by "how" but rather by "what"? Sure, many of his ideas may be technologically not feasible in the forseable future but then--maybe they will be.

I personally am saddened by human shortsightedness and selfishness and don't think it likely we will ever fulfill his expectations due to our own foolishness. Nonethless, it is visions such as Marshall's that rally a hope for a future. That even if such things are not known to be possible, they are worth trying.

Re:Don't these guys read? The Millennial Project

[mbrother]

I read his book on this topic. I was intrigued. I stole a few ideas for my science fiction novels, too.