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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.
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!
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.
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.
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